Soulless

In late 2000, Chicago journalist and music critic Jim DeRogatis received an unsigned fax suggesting that R. Kelly, the R&B star and local favorite, had a troubling interest in young girls. A few weeks later, DeRogatis published a report accusing the singer of grooming girls, abusing them sexually, and paying them off.

DeRogatis expected the story to have consequences, but Kelly's career continued to rise. Industry figures, the wider culture, and even parents of other young girls seemed unmoved. For more than eighteen years DeRogatis kept reporting. He obtained a disturbing videotape that became central to Kelly's 2008 child pornography trial, had a window shot out, and heard from women who described meetings with the singer at schools, malls, concerts, and a McDonald's, encounters that changed the course of their lives.

The book traces Kelly's career, DeRogatis's investigation, and the cultural world in which the two intersected. It also carries the story forward to the present, when the situation appears to be shifting.