R. Kelly’s new album, “I Admit,” is a bootleg, a Sony representative confirms

New official appearance R Kelly A compilation provocatively titled “I Confess” appeared on streaming services — including Spotify and Apple Music — on Friday, though representatives for Sony Music, which owns the rights to much of the singer’s catalog, emphasized diverse that the album is an unofficial (i.e. bootleg) release, although the copyright line on the album reads “Legacy Recordings”, a division of the Sony Music catalog.

A Sony representative confirmed the release is bootleg but didn’t immediately have more details; Spotify and Apple Music representatives did not immediately comment.

says Kelly’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjian diverse that the singer’s camp is not behind the release and that “his intellectual property has been stolen”. Kelly is serving a 30-year prison sentence After being found guilty of several counts of sexual misconduct in New York last year; He is awaiting trial in Illinois and other jurisdictions.

The album title comes from A 19-minute song that he released in July 2018 Which, unlike the title, basically denies the allegations of sexual misconduct against him from long ago.

The album is a collection of previously released and unreleased material dating primarily from the later years of Kelly’s recording career, although several unreleased tracks have been floating around the internet for as long as 15 years. He continued to release music as allegations against him mounted in 2018 and 2019, sometimes through his label at the time, RCA, and some on SoundCloud and other services.

While it’s amazing that such a controversial, unofficial release by an artist like Kelly was posted to the world’s biggest streaming platforms without triggering any alarms, hundreds of thousands of songs are uploaded to the services every day, copyright says Legacy Recordings, which is The name of the Sony Music catalog division – However, the official Legacy releases are copyrighted by Sony Music Entertainment.

Bootlegs have been snuck onto major streaming services in the past — several unofficial live recordings of the Velvet Underground appeared on Spotify several years ago — but they’re usually quickly removed, which seems like a likely outcome in this case.

diverse He’ll have more on the situation as it develops.