R. Kelly has posted on Instagram to mark his 54th birthday with lyrics from his 2011 song “Shut Up.”
The disgraced R&B singer, who is awaiting trial in Chicago for several crimes, including human trafficking; shared a photograph of himself with a verse from the song.
In the picture, he is seen standing with his arms spread out, holding multiple large championship belts. The audio of the lyrics plays in the background as he speaks about a “tsunami of rumors” which have come to “wipe my career away.”
He used the caption for the post to “thank God” for his life before adding birthday cake and crown emojis.
He can be heard singing about his “22 years of blessed career,” and saying that there are many people who hate him but also many who love him.
Kelly says on the track: “And even before the doctors were done and I could awake/A tsunami of rumors had come to wipe my career away/After 22 years of a blessed career/Had me lying in my hospital bed crying mad tears. But just as I had many people hatin’ me, I had so many people lovin’ me/And let’s not forget the hood around the world covering me.”
The last time R. Kelly — whose full name is Robert Sylvester Kelly — posted to social media was exactly one year ago when he shared concert footage with his followers to mark his 53rd birthday.
The iconic singer and songwriter was arrested in July 2019 and charged with crimes related to child pornography, sexual assault, human trafficking, and kidnapping.
It followed a previous arrest seventeen years prior in 2002 for child pornography, for which he was later acquitted.
His trial is expected to take place in New York in April of this year. In January 2019, the first part of a documentary — Surviving R. Kelly — was aired in the US and detailed the allegations made against R. Kelly.
The disgraced crooner created a Facebook page just days afterward, which contained personal information about the accusers featured in the documentary.
It was later removed by Facebook, and the second part of the series was aired the following year. Kelly remains popular in some corners even after getting blacklisted by the mainstream media over the allegations.
Kelly was the most dominant force in R&B music before the allegations surfaced. They forced many people to reevaluate his contribution to the genre as a whole.
