Jermaine Dupri is coming to the defense of R. Kelly‘s legacy, despite it being tarnished in recent years due to his sex crime convictions.
During an Instagram Live on Tuesday (October 1), the legendary producer acknowledged that while the embattled singer has his issues, no one can top himon the music side of things.
“R. Kelly put the ‘R’ in R&B,” JD said. “We gotta stop playing around. I get it. I understand. I’m not here to talk about none of that bullshit he’s involved with. He is the R in R&B. Hands down.”
Later in his live, he shared his thoughts on the current state of the genre, noting that the lack of church experience among young people today is impacting the music and making less soulful records.
R. Kelly has been trying to have his convictions for various sex crimes overturned due to a legal loophole.
The disgraced R&B legend has petitioned the United States Supreme Court in July to throw out his convictions based on the fact that his alleged crimes occurred decades ago and the charges therefore fall outside the statute of limitations.
Because Kelly was convicted for incidents dating back to the mid 1990s, the singer’s team argued that the PROTECT Act, which he was charged with violating, doesn’t apply to his case since it didn’t become a law until 2003 — despite prosecutors successfully arguing that the law’s statue of limitations are indefinite.
Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said that the Act’s expanded statute of limitations doesn’t apply to the charges against her client.
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The Supreme Court will reportedly decide whether to hear the appeal in the coming months.
Back in 2022, a grand jury found R. Kelly guilty on six of the 13 federal charges he was facing, which included three child pornography charges for sexually abusing four girls — three of whom were minors.
They also found the Chicago native guilty of making videos of himself sexually assaulting his 14-year-old goddaughter, which resulted in another three charges for producing sex tapes with a minor.
