Tyrese Gives ‘No F*cks’ As He Proclaims R. Kelly the King…
Tyrese made it a point to stand 10 toes down for R. Kelly while performing near the disgraced singer’s hometown of Chicago.
On Sunday (August 31), the “Sweet Lady” singer performed as part of the Summer Jam R&B festival at Illinois’ Maywood Veterans Park. During his set, he shouted out the Kells, calling him the “King of R&B.”
“I know the city I’m in,” Tyrese said in the clip below. “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 artists — including Tyrese — have named R. Kelly as a top vocalist in the genre many times before, notably on Tank and J. Valentine’s R&B Money podcast.
Last September, Tyrese boldly called Kelly the King of R&B in an interview with The Shade Room. “Who else but him?” the singer and actor said. “We’re not talking about him being in jail and all the shit that he did and controversy-wise.”
Mentioning Kelly has been a controversial move in the years since the release of his shocking docu-series Surviving R. Kelly, where multiple women accused him of grooming and sexual abuse.
A New York jury found R. Kelly guilty of sexually exploiting children, kidnapping, forced labor, and eight infractions of the Mann Act, a law against sex trafficking, and sentenced him to 30 years in prison in 2022. A Chicago jury also found the vocalist guilty of similar offenses, including three counts of distributing pornography and three counts of enticing children for sex, and sentenced Kelly to 20 years.
In June, it was reported that Kelly has requested that he be released from jail while in fear that his life was being threatened. At the time, the 58-year-old accused a staff member in a solitary confinement area of a North Carolina prison of administering a potentially lethal amount of medication for blood clots.
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