Back in the early 2000s, Nick Cannon was working on his music career and breaking away from his young, goofy persona portrayed in his films. In 2003 Cannon released his self-titled debut album, Nick Cannon, and his single "Gigolo," a collaboration with R. Kelly, even peaked at No. 9 on Billboard's Hot Rap Tracks Chart. In a recent interview with VladTV, Cannon reflects on his time with Kelly and shares his thoughts on the singer after watching Lifetime's controversial Surviving R. Kelly documentary series.
Cannon says that the way Kelly's studio is set up is actually a number of different recording areas in one building. He claims that Kelly left him in one of the studios for 12 hours and finally, after being frustrated with sitting around, he wrote and recorded his verses for "Gigolo" and left. Cannon went on to say he didn't even know that the record was finished until his label called and praised the song.
"When you go to his studio, you don’t see anybody else," Cannon says. "If I would have seen some little girls in the studio, I would have been like, 'I’m out.'" Even though Cannon never saw any girls or women while he there, he believes that the responsibility of Kelly's actions doesn't just belong to the singer.
"As fans, as the public, as the people close around him, we got to take responsibility for letting this man that was super talented operate in a way that was just inhumane," Cannon says. "Even in the documentary, the stuff that they show from the tape, like him standing over a 14-year-old girl and urinating on her...Dave Chappelle was making jokes about that. As a father with a daughter now, there’s nothing funny about a grown man urinating on a little girl."
Cannon comments on Joycelyn Savage and Azriel Clary sitting down for an interview and defending Kelly in the light of accusations that he is holding them against their wills. "the girls in the Gayle King interview, they’re 21 and have been with him for however long, you can tell by the way they carried themselves, they were trying to be mature," Cannon says. "But I was like, ‘These are little girls.’ They reminded me of little girls trying to act grown."
