After making headlines with his personal life, R. Kelly is turning the focus back to his hitmaking career.
The R&B singer, 42, is putting the final touches on his fourteenth studio album. Originally titled 12 Play: Fourth Quarter, Kells’ new LP will go by the name Untitled when it’s released in September, DJ Skee tells staging-rapup.kinsta.cloud. The popular DJ and host of Sirius XM’s new radio show “Skeetox,” is among the few who’s heard the album. “I actually just got back from Chicago where they were finishing the album,” he says. “I think I’ve heard about 90 percent of it.”
The first single is slated to be a reworked version of the raunchy “No. 1 Sex.” “There was a version that leaked, but they have a whole new version,” reveals Skee.
He hinted at a surprise collaboration on R. Kelly’s first album since being acquitted of child pornography charges a year ago. “[There’s] one song on there. I don’t think I can leak it yet, but it has like five R&B singers on it. It’s like the new ‘Secret Garden.’ It’s incredible,” he professes, comparing it to the 1989 song by Al B. Sure!, Barry White, El DeBarge, James Ingram, and Quincy Jones.
Skee admits that he was apprehensive about meeting the “Ignition” singer, but that quickly changed once they were introduced. “I heard all these stories and I thought it was going to be hard to work with him, but then I met him and he was like the coolest dude,” he adds. “He just loves music and he gets a bad rap from a lot of the other bullshit outside of it. But from my experiences with him, he’s been nothing but one of the coolest people out there, and the music, I think, speaks for itself.”
In the meantime, R. Kelly has released his first mixtape with DJ Skee called The Demo Tape, which features remixes of Jeremih’s “Birthday Sex” and Drake’s “Best I Ever Had,” as well as new tracks like “Tip the Waiter.” It is available for download here.
–Reporting by David Fromayan