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There's a local dude that has always been a Wilding Out type of character going all the way back to middle school. Always jumping into playing different characters and controlling the room; basically a black Robin Williams in a way. He used to be notorious for sneaking up on girls at house parties and making out with them without asking, pulling Trump kind of moves and getting rebuffed. He sexually assaulted at least five girls that I know of, at least one of which he fingered without consent. The last of these stories was over five years ago, but anyone who's known him long enough knows him.
These days he's married with a daughter and is basically a daily remix of Kanye's attitude on "Violent Crimes". He still has good taste in music, still puts on pretty entertaining shows, still gives great interviews, and you can tell he realizes he let the lesser parts of his outgoing personality get the best of him way too often in his teens through his mid/late-20s.
I won't ever forget that that's a part of his story, but I was just never able to connect that to the entertainment side of him because it never came up in that context. Sometimes I won't listen to a thing RIGHT AWAY; there was that indie rock band, PWR BTTM, that had a swift swing of publicity and positive reviews before it was revealed one of the band members was a serial sexual assaulter and the label dropped them, the albums were recalled and everyone reversed course on whether the album was any good.
Most amateur reviews since then contain some variation of, "I really wish I could still listen to this because it's so fun and refreshing." I guess I see that as a sort of dishonesty, though I can see how someone could see the opposite (continuing to listen to an artist you objectively disagree with as a person) as dishonest as well.
I used to work with a girl who went to college with those dudes and was hyping their upcoming album every single day before it came out, playing me demos they sent her over DM and gushing about how their sound had evolved since she first met them. So I couldn't help but listen to the album when it came out, and all the pre-reviews before the allegations surfaced were right - it was a breath of fresh air for 2017 indie rock, and rightly being touted as one of the year's most fun and slightly inventive releases. But now no one will say that, for reasons that have nothing to do with the music.
They were clearly one of her very favorite bands; I wonder how their situation affected her often. And sometimes I think I might have too voracious an appetite for art, but there are all sorts of legendary and classic pieces made by bad people. Jay-Z made "The Blueprint" after he nearly murdered somebody; I'll never forget that. I'll also never be able to say that isn't one of my very favorite rap albums ever.
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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz
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