On August 7, R&B legend Ronald Isley entered federal p rison to
begin a three-year sentence for tax evasion. Isley was convicted last
September for nonpayment of $3.1 million worth of taxes between 1997
and 2002. One of the original shaping forces in soul music and rhythm
and blues, Isley was the frontman of the Isley Brothers through four
decades. His was the lead voice on classics such as “It’s Your Thing,”
“Shout,” “Fight the Power,” and “Who’s That Lady.”
During the weeks preceding his incarceration, a small but fervent
movement rallied behind Isley. Websites like DefJam.com—home to his present record
label—and BlackAmericaWeb.com petitioned
President Bush for clemency via Bush’s executive authority. Letters,
e-mails, petitions, and notices circulated, citing Isley’s historical
and artistic merit, his nearly seven decades of lawful citizenry, and
the fact that he’s making a complete restitution of back taxes to the
U.S. government.
The 67-year-old Isley is also in failing health—three years
ago he suffered a stroke and last year was diagnosed with kidney
cancer, which leaves him in a state of perpetual medical need. (Though
he recently managed to father a child with one of his backup singers.)
Should he go to jail, Isley could die there.
Taken on its own, the campaign for clemency for Isley is quixotic.
But a recent presidential act lends it gravity: Only two months ago,
Bush commuted the prison sentence of administration affiliate I. Lewis
“Scooter” Libby Jr. Possibly the most corrupt executive legal action
since Ford pardoned Nixon in 1974, the Libby commutation not only casts
Isley’s situation in stark relief, but has emboldened the Isley
movement substantially; supporters’ letters and petitions have
referenced it outright.
Really, neither Isley nor Libby should be seriously considered for a
pardon. Isley is hardly a good guy: During his tax trial he was accused
of cashing royalty checks made out to his deceased brothers to help
finance his luxurious lifestyle. And in recent years, Isley’s closest
musical accomplice has been none other than R&B
superstar/accused-statutory-rapist R. Kelly, company that hardly speaks
to a healthy moral compass.
Recording and performing with Kelly, Isley had taken to billing
himself as “Mr. Biggs”—a fur-draped mack persona that’s both a
grab at relevance in the hiphop era and an attempt to live out certain
indulgences in his golden years. Essentially, Isley has cast himself as
the ultimate image of black-American antiestablishment financial and
moral independence: the pimp.
Libby, on the other hand, is the most establishment-positive
character the ruling class could dream of. He’s willing to do dirt in
service to his country, to jettison his own personal dignity for a
perceived greater good, to be a public fall guy for his superiors.
Bush’s partial treatment of Libby, a convicted obstructer of justice,
implies a sense of institutional respect for one of the lowest forms of
life from the perspective of modern hiphop culture: the snitch.
The pimp is an icon of free will and the “going-for-self” MO that
permeates the modern rap dream. He flamboyantly pursues his ascendancy
without deference to the law. In contrast, the snitch breaks the moral
code of the street—and probably his own code of ethics,
too—in the service of the law. The pimp’s mode of criminality
gains him punishment from the ruling authority; the snitch’s gains him
exoneration with potential reward. The difference between these two
characters is their methods of dealing with the powers that
be—defiance or surrender.
It’s poetic that Isley’s crime is tax evasion—essentially the
placing of the self over the state. Ultimately, his offenses were
selfish; though he indulged in pimp playacting, he is certainly not the
ghetto Robin Hood of blaxploitation cinema. His heroics to the
community begin and end with his musical legacy. That legacy made Isley
rich and adored, but it couldn’t buy his way out of prison. 