It has recently been reported that the disgraced R’n’B singer R Kelly once claimed that Jay-Z once tried to kill him. According to a former cellmate of the incarcerated vocalist, Kelly asserted that the Brooklyn emcee once had a hit out on him.
R Kelly and Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter) worked together several times in the early-2000s. In 2002, the pair released a collaborative album, The Best Of Both Worlds, which debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, and in 2004, the duo put out the 11-track LP Unfinished Business, which also had an accompanying tour.
However, on that tour, following a performance at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the vocalist claimed that when he left the stage, he was met by an array of hoodlums pointing guns at him. Furthermore, he claimed that he got pepper-sprayed by Jay-Z’s close friend, Def Jam exec Tyran ‘Ty Ty’ Smith.
Following the debacle, R Kelly got dropped from the tour but pursued a lawsuit to sue Jay-Z for breach of contract, seeking $75million. Although it is factual that Kelly got removed from the tour, all his allegations have remained unproven.
During an appearance on the Hip-Hop Uncensored podcast, Ronnie Bo, Kelly’s former cellmate, stated, “He felt like Jay-Z was kind of secure because, at the time, R Kelly was technically bigger than him. He felt like during one of the shows when they was in Madison Square Garden in 2004 prior to that event, he said days before the event that he was getting death threats that he felt was coming from Jay-Z.”
He continued, adding, “Like Jay-Z was trying to basically, I don’t know if this is going to sound outrageous, but he felt like Jay-Z was trying to get him killed for whatever reason.”
There was never an investigation, and the claims to this day remain baseless. Despite being dropped from the tour, there was never any proof that Carter wished to have Kelly killed, but the debacle resulted in the end of his and Kelly’s working relationship with the billionaire emcee. You can hear Bo speak on the allegations in the video below.
