How We Reported The R. Kelly Story Others Tried To Stop

Danyel Smith is an award-winning journalist and former editor who helped shape Black music journalism during the 1990s. In this reflection, Smith recounts how she broke the story of R. Kelly’s secret marriage to Aaliyah while working at Vibe magazine, navigating industry pressure, legal threats and skepticism to publish one of the defining music stories of her career.

We had booked…

This is when I was music editor of Vibe. And my boss, editor in chief, was Alan Light.

We had booked R. Kelly, and I was a new music editor. I might have been there two months. And R. Kelly was huge. It was so huge. I think people really forget how big “Bump N’ Grind” was, literally, in all of music history. Not just Black music. It’s one of the biggest radio singles of all time. You could not move without hearing “Bump N’ Grind.”

I believe in personal taste, and I believe in curation. I also believe in pop music as a defining force of what folks… It’s a democratic system that I’ve never been able to ignore, especially coming from Billboard, where if we’re counting up how many times a song has been played on the radio—back when radio wasn’t being completely programmed—you have to look at that because people are essentially voting for their faith, let alone buying stuff at the record store.

So it’s like, we have to get R. Kelly. And we just all thought he was so deep. My God. Out of Chicago. Just like, he’s the new Stevie Wonder. He’s like, “It ain’t nothing wrong with a little bit of bump and grind.”

And so we had booked it for the cover, ready to go. I was writing it because that’s back when I felt like I had to do everything at all times.

I think that interview was just set up for some time in some random city because he was a part of the Budweiser Superfest Tour.

And we started receiving information that he and Aaliyah had been married.

I remember saying to myself right there, “How does that…?” Like, is she 18? I remember that being one of my first thoughts. She wasn’t as famous in that moment as she would become.

Is she 18?

People were like, “That girl hardly 18.”

Now, I will say to that, I thought it was made up. I thought that because it was so outlandish. She was 14, we found out. It was so outlandish, I just didn’t think that it could be true.

So we’re functioning eight to ten weeks in advance of going to the printer.

We had a great team of reporters, Rob Kenner, Carter Harris. They said, “Somebody’s got to write the story. Somebody’s got to shoot the story. We’re going to find a marriage certificate,” which was crazy.

I was like, I’m working at a real serious journalistic enterprise right now.

Jive Records called and said the story was off, first of all.

Don’t come calling me and telling me what’s off.

Like…

This is also in the era where East Oakland was still so strong in my soul—and it is forever—but it was way more close to the surface back then, where I always just wanted to fight. Like, I was just always ready to…

Always just…

And it served me well covering rap in the ’90s. It’s always cursing somebody out, and someone was always cursing me out, and there were always crises that I was like, “Motherfucker said all that.”

So I was definitely giving Jive back what they were giving to me because it wasn’t super businesslike. It was very much like, “It’s over.”

So me and Alan were like, “That’s cool.”

We’re going to Philly.

There’s this white girl, Dana Lixenberg. She’s a South African photographer, shot all the most amazing shots of Tupac with the bandana on his head and all that for Vibe.

Me and Dana got on Amtrak. I went to Philly for the tour stop.

Just long story short, man, when we got there, there was literally… I had no… nothing was set up for me. Usually you go and it’s like, “I’m at will call. I’m Danyel from Vibe. We’re interviewing Mr. Kelly,” or whatever.

Girl, I had nothing.

But I had been hopping fences to get into shows for, at this time, ten years.

So…

Got past security for some BS.

And then saw a friend of mine with laminates who’s no longer with us, Scoop. He was on the road with Coolio.

I told him what me and Dana were trying to do. He was laughing. He had like 50 laminates. I was like, “Scoop, you got to give me and Dana some laminates just so we can get backstage.”

I remember he was taking off laminates and he was like, “You gonna see what’s going on backstage when you get back there?”

Okay.

So again, always ready to fight.

When we got into the tunnels that make up—I think it was called the Spectrum back then—the stadium…

You know the kind of paper that you just put in a copy machine or a printer? Eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheets of paper.

On the walls, just written in ballpoint pen, was:

“Fuck Vibe.”

“No Vibe people allowed.”

It’s like…

What?

Like, not for real.

Me and Dana were like…

All up and down the hallway. Just taped to the wall in ballpoint pen and shit.

“No Vibe allowed.”

Again.

So now you’re making me…

Now I’m really going to get your story.

Like, what are we doing?

“No Vibe.”

I didn’t have the good sense to be scared at all.

Me or Dana.

Frankly, no good sense.

Just focused.

We’re getting the story.

We passed Coolio again.

Folks gone.

God bless.

I don’t know Coolio like that, and he couldn’t have spoken to Scoop because, again, we didn’t even really have good cell phones back then. I think I had an Ericsson that was as big as this laptop.

But being from California…

Kudos to California.

So I was like, “Yo, what’s going on?”

And he was like…

I said, “I’m looking for Robert’s room.”

I didn’t know until after the show, but he and Robert…

So he was like, “That [N-word] is right…”

“Make a left.”

Right.

So again…

God bless Scoop and Coolio for this moment.

But we get to the door, and of course there’s the stereotypical big, mean-looking security guard, who I’ve never been afraid of.

I just was very much like,

“Hi. I’m Danyel Smith. I’m the music editor of Vibe. This is my photographer, Dana Lixenberg. We’re here for the story.”

Trying to act like I didn’t know that the whole shit had been called off.

“Absolutely not. You need to be removed from the premises. I’m calling…”

And this is where…

I lied so hard.

I said,

“We have a signed contract for a cover story.”

It’s a whole and complete untruth.

Nothing…

Literally.

And even if I did…

And what?

And who does that?

I was like,

“Mr. Kelly is going to have to tell me to my face.”

What are we, in the sixth grade?

“Mr. Kelly is going to have to tell me to my face.”

That’s the story.

Because I have to take that back.

You always pull out…

“Because I have to take that back to Quincy Jones, okay?

And let Mr. Jones know that Mr. Kelly is declining.”

Girl.

Let us in.

Quincy Jones.

Quincy’s name.

Don’t pull it out all the time.

But when you have to…

It worked.

We got in there, and I could tell he thought Dana was cute.

She had a backdrop in a tube, gangster, like a tube. And in the tube also, she had the thing to hang the backdrop on. She just started setting it up without anybody saying anything to her.

And it appealed to his vanity because he said,

“This is the cover of Vibe?”

I said, “Yes, it is.”

He said,

“I’m not doing any type of interview.”

I said, “Okay.”

I said, “I’m just going to take notes.”

He said,

“You can’t write anything down.”

Again…

Am I on a show?

Like, is this a reality show?

We didn’t even have reality shows back then.

I was like…

I’m gonna have to just think real hard and concentrate and memorize.

Then I’m just going to have to write around it.

This is how my mind was working.

I’m just gonna have to report it out when I get back, because when I get back, Carter and them will have the marriage certificate, or they won’t.

Then I can write about him as a phenomenon.

I can interview people around him, which I did.

I interviewed one of his teachers who loved him so much when he was in high school. She really encouraged him.

And a bunch of people around him.

So I’m just going to sit here and be a witness and listen and pay attention.

And also watch Dana’s back.

So we got the shot.

Well…

They denied it.

They said it was fake.

The marriage certificate wasn’t real.

They said…

When the magazine finally dropped, because when I got back to Jive Records, they knew we had a story and we were still running it.

They were calling our lawyers and saying we couldn’t do it, or it’s just not true.

We’re doing it.

Matter of fact is that the printer…

Everything was a battle back then.

That’s why I say I was the right person at the right time for Vibe.

Because I had a V on my chest.

Like…

We were doing it.

And Alan…

He was super…

Just super extra.

So I remember when the issue dropped…

It was insane.

The response.

No social media.

We were the social media.

Us and radio.

So what happened was I would get called by local radio or call in to radio stations around the country to talk about,

“Oh, this is what’s in this issue of Vibe, and this is what we’re doing.”

Girl…

I was getting eight million calls.

And the New York station at the time was reporting that Robert was going to sue us for libel.

Or slander.

I remember feeling so confident.

And this goes back to what we were speaking about a little bit ago.

I remember feeling so absolutely confident in saying,

“He’s not going to sue us because we printed the truth.

There’s no malice intended at all with regard to what we published.

And he knows all of this because I’m sure his attorneys have told him that.”

Also…

If he wants to sue, then we can all get in the room and talk about everything in the discovery phase of the situation.

So I remember…

I said it on the radio.

I said to Mr. Kelly…

And to Jive…

Because Vibe…

Every single page of Vibe was read by lawyers before it was published.

Every single month that I’ve ever worked there.

As editor in chief…

Every single page.

And I used to hate hearing back from legal that we had to change something or do something.

You know what I mean?

So I felt so confident.

And I just remember basically saying…

If he wants to go in there…

Stop talking about it.

It was the Wild, Wild West.

It’s the first R. Kelly Vibe cover of him, just kind of shoulders up.

And the headline is:

“The Sex, The Soul, The Sales And The Scandalous Marriage To Teenage Superstar Aaliyah.”

That’s courtesy of Alan Light.

I wrote the story.

Carter and Rob—they got the marriage certificate.

And we ran it.

And that was the beginning of people having to confront what was really…

What was really going on.