Gaslight of the Gods: Why I Still Play

Michael Jackson and R. Kelly for My

Students
By William Cheng
SEPTEMBER 15, 2019

“J ust out of curiosity, you guys, clap if you’re done with R. Kelly,” Aziz

Ansari instructed the audience during his recent Netflix stand-up special, Right
Now. The large crowd applauded and cheered loudly. Minutes later, arriving at the
subject of Michael Jackson, the comedian cast another line, this time with more
dubious bait: “Clap if you’re done with Michael Jackson.”

Only a smattering of claps, as sporadic and muffled as popcorn in a microwave. No

cheers. “That was way less people!” Ansari exclaimed with widened eyes, drawing
much abashed laughter. “You guys are all collectively like, ‘Uh, I don’t know what to
tell you, Aziz. The music’s way better. Sorry. I’ll take the hit on Kells, but Michael is
a bridge I’m not willing to cross. I got a wedding next month!’”

Plenty of couples these days are actually banning R. Kelly and Michael Jackson from
wedding playlists. R. Kelly in particular, as D.J. Chris Keenan puts it, “is a 100-
percent no-go at all gigs now.” In the wake of Lifetime’s docuseries Surviving R.
Kelly and HBO’s Leaving Neverland — and with #MuteRKelly, #CancelMJ, and
#MeToo seared into public consciousness — cancel culture is in full swing.

Granted, as implied by Ansari’s jokes, some listeners continue to debate whether the
quality and utility of music created by alleged abusers should bear on
the permissibility of its consumption. Others argue that the monumental oeuvre of an
icon such as Jackson is simply “too big to cancel.”
For purposes of private enjoyment, I don’t seek out the music of R. Kelly or Michael
Jackson anymore. My threefold reasons aren’t especially new: First, I don’t wish to
contribute to the streaming revenue for these artists or their estates; second, there’s so
much other music in the world to discover; and finally, I feel strange nowadays —
unsettled, enticed, guilty, complicit — whenever I hear, say, “I Believe I Can Fly” or
“Man in the Mirror” on the car radio or in a mall. The emotions are too messy.

But that last reason is exactly why I do choose to play such songs — now more than
ever — for the college students in my music classes.

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To feel uncomfortable and trapped in a relationship with lovable music made by

problematic musicians is not so different from feeling uncomfortable and trapped in a
relationship with a problematic partner. Our vulnerability to charismatic music offers
a key to understanding our vulnerability to charismatic people, institutions, and
ideologies more broadly.

It’s not a clear-cut analogy. Yet in our relationships with music and with people, there
are shared dimensions of coercion, turmoil, and psychic unraveling. Being beguiled.
Losing your sense of self. Believing you can’t quit someone or something that’s
become an indelible part of who you are.

I continue to play Michael Jackson in popular music classes today because, in part, I
feel obligated to deal with questions of historical context and stylistic lineage. But
when I play “Black or White” and “We Are the World,” I also want these influential
recordings to remind students firsthand of our collective susceptibility to seduction,
musical and otherwise. (Instead of streaming these songs and generating clicks, I play
them in class using CDs from the school’s music library whenever possible.) For
courses emphasizing European classical music, I conduct similar exercises with
Richard Wagner’s music dramas, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Mozart’s Don
Giovanni (an opera condemned by some writers as a misogynist rape fantasy).

To be clear, it’s not my job to tell students what music they should love or consume.
My job is to teach them how to think critically about the consequences of
consumption, the nature of aesthetic enchantment, the tangled networks of music-
industrial forces, and the rhetorical strategies displayed by people on multiple sides of
a given issue.
I would certainly grant permission to any students who ask to duck out of the
classroom because they’re upset by, say, “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number,” the
1994 ballad written by R. Kelly for Aaliyah, who began recording the song at age 14.
(Aaliyah and the 27-year-old R. Kelly secretly wed in the summer of that year.) For
anyone who has experienced abuse — not least at the hands of an older or physically
dominant person — R. Kelly’s explicit lyrics, ventriloquized through a teenaged
chanteuse, can undoubtedly sound disturbing.

At the same time, listeners might find this R&B jam enthralling, with Aaliyah’s sultry
and multilayered vocals pulsing just shy of a downtempo 85 BPM, and the chorus’s
catchy, singable melody (tightly constrained within the first five notes of a minor
scale) swaying like a snake within the confines of a small basket.

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Over the course of the song, moreover, the hypnotic repetition of “Age ain’t nothing
but a number / Throwing down ain’t nothing but a thing” intensifies the familiarity —
perhaps believability — of this mantra. Even within a single playback, we might not
hear the eighth or ninth iteration the same way we heard the first utterance three
minutes prior. These words have the potential to work on listeners: assuaging,
massaging, chipping away at cognitive defenses and deep-set values.

So even though the majority of the repertoire I typically teach has been written or
performed by musicians who, as far as I know, did not prey on their young protégés, I
devote at least one class each term to the acclaimed music of so-called “monstrous
men.” When I play such siren songs, I challenge students to:

 Contemplate how the listening experiment feels.

 Articulate what it could mean, and what it would take, to detach from certain
musical pieces — or from certain people, certain groups — all but
overwhelming in their magnetism.
 Consider how lessons in a music classroom can sharpen their abilities to detect
and redress any unjust or dangerous relationships in their own lives.

For it’s one thing to say you could easily resist bopping your head along to a “tainted”
track. It’s another matter entirely to prove this stoic capacity when the visceral beats
of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” or R. Kelly’s “Bump n’ Grind” ensorcell your limbs
on the dance floor. Likewise, it’s easy to say you should break away from a noxious
partner, colleague, or boss. It’s much harder to follow through when the person is
standing immediately in front of you — potent aura, voice, and all.

When I scan the numerous insightful think pieces today about the age-old question of
“separating art from artist,” I wonder how many of these authors are actually listening
to that particular artist’s art while they write. My guess is not many. But if more
writers were to do so — say, cue up R. Kelly’s millennial anthem “The World’s
Greatest” during first draft — would some essays turn out a little differently? Can we
accurately and honestly express our ideas about specific music without opening
ourselves to its immanent power, and without letting ourselves feel, at times,
powerless in turn?

With a new academic year under way, music educators across the country will be
facing redoubled quandaries about which music should or should not be played in
their classrooms, whether it’s the pantheon of pop or the recordings of various
classical musicians facing serious allegations (such as former Metropolitan Opera
director James Levine, conductor Charles Dutoit, countertenor David Daniels, and
opera legend Placido Domingo).

I respect the decisions of teachers who are taking firm stands in favor of cancellation.
Deprogramming, divesting, and boycotting are all vital tools in combating the myriad
vices of musicians and music industries. For my part, I believe there’s a
complementary wisdom in allowing ourselves, as an exercise, to listen on occasion to
the music of problematic artists, if only to speak candidly about our common
vulnerabilities.

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Put another way, there’s strength in knowing our weaknesses. Music and musicians,
as much as anything else, alert us to just how seductive and seducible people can be.

Because in the end, you and I — like the artists we’ve made gods — are only human,
after all.

William Cheng is an associate professor and acting chair of the music department at
Dartmouth College. His most recent book is Loving Music Till It Hurts (Oxford,
2019), and he is co-editor of the Music and Social Justice series (University of
Michigan Press).