Bands these days would turn to the internet to release snippets of upcoming album material either through their myspace, official websites or even iTunes.

R.Kelly on the other hand is turning to your phone as his marketing medium.

The R&B singer is back with a new album titled ‘Double Up’, which is due to hit stores on May 29th.

Fans can preview his material before the album release date by dialling in to a hotline (312-278-3965) where they can listen to the singer himself introduce his song snippets as a message recording greeting.

When callers dial in you will hear R. Kelly start off with: "Since y'all called, I'ma give y'all a few lil snippets. Here's what I'm about to hit y'all with”.

He then continues to introduce five second clips of songs featured on the album which are ‘Blow It Up’ featuring Young Jeezy and Young Dro, then ‘Leave Your Name’ a track based on an answering machine greeting, ‘Freak it in the Club’ , ‘Rockstar’ and ‘Put Some Money On It’ follow.

To keep fans engaged he does a little role-playing telling fans that, "Unfortunately I'm 'sleep, been out partying all night, and I'm blasted off that Hennessey. Leave your name after the beep, and I'm sure to get back with you if I'm not asleep or smoking on some trees." As the verse comes to an end, Kelly suggests, "That should be on your ringtone."

Other featured guests on the album include Snoop Dogg, Ludacris, Rick Ross, Pharrell, Kanye West, Young Jeezy, T.I. & T-Pain.

Kelly also claims that during the message recording, he was in the middle of working on a track called "Hook It Up" featuring Kanye West. "We're doing vocals on it," he says before going into the music, ‘but I guess I can play a little of what I'm working on’.

Compared to his last album ‘TP.3 Reloaded’ this new album is mostly uptempo except for maybe one slow jam track.

The first single, "I'm a Flirt (Remix)" featuring T.I. and T-Pain, is slowly climbing the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.

Our Thoughts

The track I’m a Flirt is an original song produced and co-written by R. Kelly, although this track appeared under the same title on Bow Wow’s 2006 album ‘The Price of Fame’, Bow Wow will not appear on the Remix.