Timbaland defends R. Kelly’s music in his latest interview
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Timbaland defends R. Kelly's music in his latest interview

Timbaland is a producer and businessman who is highly respected in hip-hop. From ‘Dirt Off Your Shoulder’ to ‘Sexy Back,’ the beatmaker has a multitude of rap and R’n’B hits to his name. However, in a recent interview on the Club Shay Shay podcast, the 51-year-old musician defended R. Kelly, telling listeners not to “mix music up with personal.”

In conversation with the podcast’s host Shannon Sharpe, the Virginia entrepreneur accepted the vocalist’s vulgarity concerning his sex trafficking, racketeering, child pornography, and child abuse charges. However, the producer (real name Timothy Mosley) insisted that separating the art from the artist is vital in cases such as Kelly’s.

Disclosing his thought’s on the now-incarcerated singer, Mosley asserted: “R. Kelly’s the king of R&B. We all know that, man! Everybody jump when you say ‘R. Kelly’… I’m like, ‘So we just gonna ignore his music that he gave us, that we all jam to? No, we can’t do that.’ His art is his art. I ain’t gonna bash the man’s art.”

The legend continued defending R. Kelly, saying: “Don’t mix music up with personal! Music is a feeling that stands alone. Music is something that don’t have no race, that brings people together. It don’t have no drama with it. It is a place of enjoyment, of feeling, so don’t bring drama into music. Leave that outside.” Although Mosley insists the art stands alone, some may find it hard to detach the music from Kelly, who is currently serving 30 years in prison.

Mosley’s defence of Kelly is odd, considering the two never worked together, and even more bizarre as the beatmaker was very close to Aaliyah, to whom Kelly was married. At the time of their marriage, Aaliyah was 15, while the imprisoned vocalist was 27. In a 2011 episode of True Hollywood Story, Timbaland admitted to being “in love” with Aaliyah when they first met in 1995. However, they were never romantically involved. You can watch the Club Shay Shay interview in the video below.