25 Years Ago in the Nineties: R. Kelly “Bump N’ Grind”

Especially if you’ve been following recent news about him (or you’ve been aware for years of the things that news covers), you know that R. Kelly is a deeply problematic figure in American music. Part of the problem is that American society has to reconcile Kelly’s behavior against the popularity he has enjoyed, particularly as he was one of the most successful popular music artists during the 1990s and 2000s. In the 1990s alone, Kelly reached the Top 40 on Billboard‘s Hot 100 chart fourteen times, with seven of those songs hitting the Top 10 and two climbing to number one. Exactly 25 years ago, the first of Kelly’s two chart-topping songs, “Bump N’ Grind,” rose to the pinnacle position to begin a four-week reign.