Tampa's newly renamed Yuengling Center will host R. Kelly on November 10.
Yuengling and R. Kelly? Is there a VI-pee-pee section somewhere?
The 51-year-old embattled, and emboldened, 90s R&B icon announced the show — where Adina Howard and Keyshia Cole will open — on Tuesday morning, but the announcement comes just a week after Kelly's ex-wife, Andrea Kelly, went on The View and accused the R&B singer of multiple incidents of physical abuse.
The announcement also comes months after the #MuteRKelly campaign asked the music industry to cut its ties with the singer in the wake of Kelly's 2002 indictment on 21 counts of child pornography (he was found not guilty by a Chicago jury in 2008) plus his being sued by at least four women for sexual misconduct and aggravated assault.
"In all, accusations against the singer stretch back over two decades," wrote NPR which also mentioned how BuzzFeed published a series of reports in which several young women — including one woman from Polk County — accused Kelly of misconduct and holding them against their will.
"One former personal assistant to Kelly called him a 'puppet master,'" according to the news outlet.
In April, Kelly's management called the accusations an an "attempted public lynching" and claimed Kelly was the target of a "greedy, conscious and malicious conspiracy to demean him, his family and the women with whom he spends his time."
"Kelly's music is a part of American and African-American culture that should never — and will never — be silenced. Since America was born, black men and women have been lynched for having sex or for being accused of it," the statement said.
"We will vigorously resist this attempted public lynching of a black man who has made extraordinary contributions to our culture."
Less than three months later, Kelly released a 19-minute song called "I Admit," in which he referenced and denied many of the accusations made against him. And while some shows did get canceled in the wake of the #MuteRKelly movement, the singer's streaming numbers actually ended up rising after he was banned from Spotify under the streaming platform's since-revised policy against hate content and hateful conduct.
Tickets to see Kelly in Tampa go on sale Thursday, October 11 at 10 a.m. and will run fans $49-$125. More information is available below.
R. Kelly w/Keyshia Cole/Adina Howard. Sat., Nov. 10, 8 p.m. $$49-$125. yuenglingcenter.com.
This article appears in Oct 4-11, 2018.