R. Kelly, a disgraced R&B artist sentenced to 30 years in prison for sex crimes against teenage girls and guilty of child pornography, saw an unreleased album released Friday, while he is incarcerated, on the Spotify and Apple Music platforms , disc that the specialized press described as a pirate recording.
It was the TMZ media which first claimed that Robert Sylvester Kelly, 55, imprisoned in New York, had posted the album “I Admit it”, consisting of 13 tracks including the eponymous 19-minute track. already released in 2018 on SoundCloud.
Spotify did not respond to requests from AFP and, a few hours after the article from TMZ as well as another from Hollywood Reporter, the disc was no longer available on either of the two online music platforms, a- we observed.
A representative of the owner of the rights of R. Kelly Sony Music, questioned by the media Variety, assured that this album briefly available on the platforms had been made public unofficially, that is to say according to Variety that it is It was a “pirate” recording released under the cloak.
A lawyer for R. Kelly, Jennifer Bonjean, also affirmed, still with Variety, that neither the singer nor his entourage were behind this event, and that his client had “had his intellectual property stolen”.
The singer, known worldwide for his hit “I Believe I Can Fly” and his 75 million records sold, was found guilty in September 2021 in New York of having piloted a “system” of sexual exploitation of young people for three decades. , including teenage girls. For these sexual crimes, the federal court in Brooklyn sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
And last September, a court in Chicago (Illinois) found him guilty of production of child pornography and embezzlement of a minor. He could be sentenced to “10 to 90 years in prison”, according to the Illinois federal prosecutor.
The lawsuits against R. Kelly are considered a major milestone in the #MeToo movement: it is the first time that the majority of plaintiffs have been black women accusing a black artist and obtaining justice.
For decades, the success of R. Kelly had been tarnished by suspicions of sexual violence, objects of persistent rumors. He had long managed to silence them with financial agreements that included confidentiality clauses.