Users of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music had to blink on Friday. Suddenly a new album by R. Kelly, who is currently serving a thirty-year prison sentence, was online. The musician didn’t do it himself from behind bars. How might new works of him appear on official channels?
How exactly the album ended up on streaming services, R. Kelly’s team doesn’t yet dare to say for sure. The singer himself was unaware of this, and his former record company Sony Music also claims it is not responsible. This is surprising, because Legacy Records received credit for the record and that company is part of Sony Music. A few hours after the release, Legacy Records took the album back offline.
According to Kelly and his team, this is a so-called “bootleg recording”: an unofficial recording that is not from the artist himself. Kelly’s attorney speaks out about “stolen intellectual property” from the singer. Kelly’s attorney and team launched an investigation into the leak. After all, only a handful of people should have access to unreleased music in his catalog.
The unofficial album bears the title I admit. A striking title given that R. Kelly has always denied all allegations of sexual assault, for which he was convicted. The record consists in part of songs that he has previously released on Soundcloud. In 2018, for example, a song of the same title appeared in which he tried to refute the allegations.
The last album of the singer was released in 2016 and is called 12 nights of Christmas. His greatest achievements are from much earlier: zo era I believe I Can Fly released in 1996 and is Power on now twenty years old.
R. Kelly currently does not have a record label. The artist was dumped by Sony Music in 2019 after the documentary Survived R. Kelly ticked. In this, several of the artist’s victims told their story.
The lawsuits surrounding the singer are not over yet. Yet the singer (55) will certainly be in prison until he is eighty: in New York he was sentenced to thirty years in prison for sexual abuse of minors and trafficking in women. Earlier this year, he was convicted in Chicago of, among other charges, distributing child pornography. We don’t yet know how long he will receive the prison sentence for this. The judge will announce the ruling in February 2023.
