If R. Kelly didn't invent the remix in modern R&B terms, he at least has always been reversing the usual process, remixing his own songs and those of others, writing whole new hooks and verses himself instead of just letting a rapper put 16 bars on his track to make it hot. Throughout his career, he's had remixes of singles that were bigger hits than the original, from "Down Low" to "Ignition." Then he became the first R&B singer to drop a guest verse as if he was an MC on an all-star remix, first on "I'm In Luv (Wit A Stripper)" and then "Make It Rain" and "It's Me Bitches" and so on. Now, it's completely commonplace for other singers like T-Pain and Akon and Ryan Leslie (all of whom at least owe some of their success to Kells) to drop verses on remixes. Then a year or two back, around the time R. got off the hook on his court case and his career went strangely quiet, he started doing a lot of unauthorized remixes of current hits, and I assume he just felt like doing those on his own, not that any artist would really turn down an offer to have him on the official remix. And his versions of "Lookin' Boy" and "Flashing Lights" and "Touch My Body" were all pretty dope.

So in one sense, R. Kelly releasing his first mixtape, The Demo Tape, this month, is a continuation of something he's been doing for over a decade. In another less true sense, he's behind the times, in an age when R&B singers like Trey Songz and Raheem DeVaughn and Amerie routinely make mixtapes full of 'freestyles' over popular songs. But Kelly's obviously been doing this longer outside that particular format, and he also does it better. The Demo Tape doesn't really feature his best work in that vein, though it's tempting to blame that on the source material, and the fact that he was probably just grabbing a bunch of recent songs at once instead of waiting fo rinspiration to strike. There's really not a ton of potential in songs like "Turn My Swag On" and "Love Lockdown" to begin with, although it's entertaining to hear him run circles around a faux-R. hit like "Birthday Sex," or do his own weird meta twist on The-Dream's own homage to R., "Kelly's 12 Play." The new songs, including the awful current single "Supa Man High" and AutoTune messes like "P.U.S.S.Y. Cry," don't bode especially well for his next album, Untitled. I never heard the album that was leaked and shelved last year, 12 Play: Fourth Quarter, but I can only hope that just like scrapping Loveland lead to the awesome The Chocolate Factory, tossing out one record will produce a great one in its place.

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