You have to hand it to R. Kelly and his unflagging salesmanship.
Even as his publicist jumped on the line to abruptly cut off our phone interview last week, the infamous, resilient R&B singer still got in one last plug for his new album, "12 Nights of Christmas," which he's promoting in concert Saturday at the Orpheum Theatre.
"What would you say to people who believe you are the last person who should be doing a Christmas album?"
"I would say, '[The album] is out. Go get it!' " Kelly quickly interjected. And then the line went dead.
The cutoff came within seconds of the questions veering toward the many documented accounts of Kelly having sex with underage girls, which he has vehemently denied, and of charges that he made child pornography, for which he was acquitted in a 2008 criminal trial.
A routine song-and-dance that journalists and publicists play when performers with legal troubles commit to an interview, we had to agree to only ask questions pertaining to his upcoming show and music. It was an uncomfortable compromise, since the elephant in the room would loom as large as Trump Tower in Chicago, where Kelly, 49, has lived in recent years.
Given the fact that Minneapolis' biggest historic theater is welcoming Kelly — and there are many fans who believe in his innocence, or don't care — it seemed worth hearing him out even with those stipulations. After all, he was one of the top-selling R&B acts of the 1990s. Even his recent albums, "The Buffet" and "Black Panties," have sold relatively well.
Also, there were ways of staying on the promised topics without completely ignoring the elephant. Here's an edited-down transcript of the interview.
