R. Kelly may not be released, but his album is.
The fraught rapper seemingly came out with a new album on Friday, titled “I Admit,” while he was still incarcerated for federal sex crimes — although it’s unclear who is actually behind the release.
Sony Music Entertainment’s Legacy Recordings declined to comment when contacted by The Post; however, an insider said that it was not a release from the label. TMZ similarly reported that a Sony Music source said it appears to be a “bootleg” album.
Some of the tunes date back to 2018 but appear to be only released on Apple and Spotify on Friday.
It’s still unclear who dropped the album and how, but the new release is going viral for including three tracks addressing the years of allegations levied against the 55-year-old convicted sex offender. The “I Believe I Can Fly” singer — whose real name is Robert Sylvester Kelly — is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence for sex trafficking after getting convicted last year in New York of sexually abusing women, girls and boys for decades.
On the album, R. Kelly appears to come clean about some of his scandalous behavior, most notably on the multipart song “I Admit It (I Did It),” in which he proclaims, “I done f – – ked with a couple of fans” — and even claims he slept with his girlfriend’s friend. In an infamous incident in 2017, a Mississippi sheriff’s deputy filed a lawsuit against the R&B superstar for allegedly bedding his wife and giving her chlamydia.
Despite apparently airing his own dirty laundry, R. Kelly maintains that he still respects women on the track.
“How they gon’ say I don’t respect these women when all I’ve done is represent,” he raps, adding that the public is “mad I’ve got some girlfriends.”
At one point in a three-part, 15-minute song, the rapper even appears to blame the parents of his victims for introducing them: “And if you really, really wanna know. Her father dropped her off at my show. And told this boy to put her on the stage. I admit that she was overage.”
It’s unclear why Kelly was allowed back on Spotify, which stopped promoting the lyricist’s music back in 2018 amid allegations that he was running a sex cult.
Kelly is currently housed at the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate database. He is also on trial in Chicago in a separate case accusing him of videotaping himself having sex with multiple children, luring children for sex and rigging his 2008 pornography trial.
