Black Panties by R. Kelly

6.8 / 10

R. Kelly's 13th solo album Black Panties tosses aside the classic soul of his previous two albums in exchange for a deep dive into the sounds of contemporary bumping and grinding.

D+

R. Kelly has never been one to shy away from sex talk. Sure, he’s responsible for one of the greatest gospel songs of all time (“I Believe I Can Fly”), but he’s also sung about kangaroos mating, secret trysts, and taking his key and sticking it in some girl’s ignition. Kelly—and a lot of Kelly’s fans—likes to get…

8 / 10

Black Panties is straight up R&B, wanton as the genre is wont to be.

This month's album releases reviewed by the Evening Standard's music critics

Check out our album review of Artist's Black Panties on Rolling Stone.com.

After Love Letter and Write Me Back, classy and relatively polite throwback albums, R. Kelly reverts to sexually exaggerated and wholly contemporary content for Black Panties.

4 / 10

Black Panties finds Kelly descending into earthly pleasures more intensely than ever, immersed in a sticky, sordid world of pure sexuality.

6 / 10

Do people really find this sensual? R Kelly’s rise to the very top of the R&B tree cannot, surely, be based on multi-million sales caused by a gigantic ironic in-joke. His Trapped in the Closet series of films showed a knowing wink but, no, the truth is that, like Barry White once was, he’s become the emperor of bedroom music.