LOCKED UP: R&B singer R Kelly, 55
The new R Kelly album titled I Admit is said to be a bootleg.
Representatives for Sony Music, which owns the rights to most of the jailed sex predator’s back catalogue, told Variety on Friday the record is an “unofficial release”.
Variety said minutes after reports a new Kelly album had come out it was “a bootleg”, but said “the copyright line on the album reads ‘Legacy Recordings’, which is Sony Music’s catalogue division”.
Variety also added that “reps for Spotify and Apple Music did not immediately have comment”.
Kelly, 55, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, is serving a 30-year prison sentence after being found guilty of multiple sexual misconduct charges last year in New York, and is awaiting trial in Illinois and other jurisdictions.
The album’s title comes from a 19-minute song he released in July 2018 in which he essentially denies alles.
It is a collection of previously released and unreleased material mainly from the later years of Kelly’s recording career.
Several of the unreleased tracks have been shared online for up to 15 years, but not on big-name streaming sites until Friday.
In I Admit It, Kelly says he “f***** a couple of fans” and slams his victims' stories of being imprisoned and starved, rapping: “They’re brainwashed, really? Kidnapped, really? Can’t eat, really? Real talk, that s*** sound silly.”
dailyvoice@inl.co.za
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