With one or two exceptions, all of these songs are second and third rate by his standard. Funniest of all is 'Kickin' It With Your Girlfriend,' where Kelly apologizes to his woman for cheating on her, says he didn't mean to cause pain, proceeds to tell her about all about the affair, and in a roundabout way suggests that it's her fault for allowing him to cross paths with her girlfriend. Thematically opposite to Happy People/U Saved Me, the first hour of TP.3 is mostly about getting rowdy and getting it on, full of some of the clumsiest and lewdest lyrics Kelly has written, a few of which are extreme enough to be parody-proof ('Lead me to your secret jungle,' etc.). Kelly has made it explicitly clear: whatever you throw at him will come back in an equally scandalous fashion. 'Girl, I'm ready to toss your salad!' an excited line from 'In the Kitchen,' could be seen as a response to Chris Rock, who riffed on the sex tape during his Never Scared standup special and made a point to marvel at the male's enthusiastic oral performance on one particular end of the female's alimentary canal. He continues to do just that on TP.3 Reloaded, released just weeks before his trial.

Either way, it became impossible to think that Kelly wasn't, in some way, exploiting his predicament. Among many other issues, a backdrop of drizzling liquid looked like a golden shower to some people - in light of the alleged sex tape that circulated - but Kelly's handlers claimed it was honey. On 2004's mostly excellent Happy People/U Saved Me, he temporarily shed his sex-freak persona, yet he caught heat for the stage production used during a disastrous tour with Jay-Z.

Since his 2002 indictment, he has become increasingly prolific, ambitious, and bold (i.e., bonkers). Could anything be more artistically liberating than 30-plus charges of child pornography? R.

R.kelly tp3 reloaded zip