Tyrese stood firm in his support of R. Kelly while performing just outside the disgraced singer’s hometown of Chicago.
On Sunday (August 31), the “Sweet Lady” singer hit the stage at the Summer Jam R&B festival in Maywood Veterans Park, where he loudly proclaimed Kelly as the “King of R&B.”
“I know the city I’m in,” Tyrese told the crowd. “Imma say it again. Feel whatever you wanna feel, n***a, I got no fucks to give. The King of R&B is R. Kelly. Chi-Town, baby.”
Gen-X and early millennial R&B singers — Tyrese included — have long credited R. Kelly as one of the greatest vocalists in the genre, with many voicing that opinion on Tank and J. Valentine’s R&B Money podcast.
Tyrese doubled down on that stance last September in an interview with The Shade Room, where he again crowned Kelly the King of R&B. “Who else but him?” he said. “We’re not talking about him being in jail and all the shit that he did and controversy-wise.”
Of course, invoking Kelly’s name remains highly controversial in the wake of Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly docuseries, which exposed decades of allegations of grooming and sexual abuse.
In 2022, a New York jury convicted Kelly on charges including sexual exploitation of children, kidnapping, forced labor, and multiple violations of the Mann Act, sentencing him to 30 years in prison. A Chicago jury later handed him another 20-year sentence for child pornography and enticing minors for sex.
Most recently, in June, reports surfaced that Kelly had asked to be released from prison, claiming his life was at risk. The 58-year-old alleged that a staff member in a North Carolina facility’s solitary confinement unit gave him a potentially deadly dose of blood clot medication.
