Pitchfork

The most ridiculous man in R&B will return with a new album a little sooner than expected. The episodically inclined R. Kelly will release 12 Play: Fourth Quarter this summer via Jive, according to a Billboard.com report. The Double Up follow-up's title harkens back to the name of Kelly's 1993 album, 12 Play. And his 2000 album TP-2.com. And his 2005 album TP.3 Reloaded.

Fourth Quarter's first single, "Hair Braider", is out now, and according to Billboard.com, director Malcolm Jones shot a video for the tune in Chicago last month. There is also some sort of braid contest going on over at R. Kelly's site.

There are a couple of interesting things to note about "Hair Braider". First, it casts hairdressers in the same affair-worthy context T-Pain has cast strippers and bartenders, as evidenced by the refrain "zig-zags/ straight backs/ doin' my hair braider." We would love to see someone make a series of service industry employee songs that eventually includes bus drivers, department store cashiers, and Subway "sandwich artists."

Second, the song totally takes a page from The-Dream's glossy, mid-tempo, subtly vocoded playbook, which is just fine by us.