Columbus Festival Drops R. Kelly from Lineup Following Backlash
By Alexa Smith, News Editor
Columbus is a city known to celebrate its passion for the arts, and this year the city has orchestrated an inaugural festival that presents a fusion of music and fashion at no charge (with the exception of a handful of afterparty performances taking place at local venues) for its people to enjoy.
Fashion Meets Music Festival has a promising lineup on its bill, featuring well-known artists including O.A.R., Local Natives, New Found Glory and more reaching to the furthest ends of the music spectrum. Found alongside these names was R. Kelly, until receiving backlash from fellow performers and potential attendees of the festival. Because of the negative response, FMMF has decided to part ways with Kelly, removing him as a headlining performer.
Due to Kelly’s blemished past of sexual assault and violence, many of the other performers did not wish to have their name appear alongside this troubled and disrespected musician. Saintseneca and Damn the Witch Siren released public statements explaining their withdrawal from the festival lineup, Saintseneca's emphasized the role of a festival headliner as a figurehead:
“We feel his selection as a performer ignores his very serious allegations of sexual violence and assault. We feel it is an affront to all survivors, who are already often overlooked and forgotten in our society. As a result, we’ve decided to withdraw from the festival.”
In a blog post also posted to their Facebook, Damn the Witch Siren wrote, “while we were (and still are) very honored to have been asked to play this event, we can not personally support the decision to have a serial rapist perform.”
In response to the R. Kelly booking, an alternate FeMMeFest was created by Raeghan Savage of The Girls! along with Ryan Vile, Sarah Moglia and Laddan S. “to connect our female-friendly local scene in a celebration of women as a viable part of the Columbus community.” The event will raise funds for an area of charity that provides services to survivors of sexual violence.
Although the push to remove Kelly from the bill was achieved, FeMMeFest still plans to move forward and recently published a blog post explaining their plan to push forward.
“Our goal doesn’t change, because we still believe in uniting local Columbus women in power. We have formed a partnership with Ohio Alliance To End Sexual Violence that we have faith in and will continue to honor. Our genesis may have come out of negativity, but we have already begun the path to positive action, and we see no reason to stop now.”
Only attempting to fill the void of an R&B artist, FMMF wanted to include R. Kelly on the bill due to his successful career and well-known name. FMMF was in no way supporting his problematic legal history by including him in the festival but to avoid losing any other performers, sponsors or attendees, FMMF has reached an agreement with Kelly that he would no longer be headlining. It is unknown if those who have withdrawn plan to return to the festival.
