The city of Chicago, Illinois has a long and distinguished musical history. As the largest city in the nation not near an ocean, Chicago has been a defining cultural and musical influence for the entire United States — especially the Midwestern states. In the early decades of the 20th century, a "Great Migration" of poor southern African-Americans resulted in a strong, distinct tradition of blues and jazz music that continues to this day. Those blues and jazz traditions combined in the '60s to help create the famous Chicago Soul sound, music notable for less gospel and more blues input than other regional soul. More recently, the city's R&B and hip-hop music has seen a huge boost in popularity over the past 15 years, with artists like R. Kelly and Kanye West tearing up the charts. Kelly has achieved some level of notoriety for his offstage antics as well, including a well-publicized 2008 trial on charges that he engaged in some less-than-proper activities, normally associated with a urinal, with an underage girl. While this kind of news falls more under the purview of Us Weekly or Nancy Grace than it does under that of Jalopnik, thefizzle couldn't help himself today after reading about the protests outside the Detroit Auto Show.
R. Kelly has never been so interested in economics or the auto industry as he is now...
And we certainly don't want to pee-nalize him for his interest, now, do we?
[Photo Credit: Kicking Tires - thanks, Rabbi Dave!]