To help promote his upcoming book, Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me, R. Kelly released this excerpt from his work that sheds light on how he and the legendary Tupac, were fairly close to recording a collaboration album together, however their conflicting schedules prevented them from doing so, prior to Tupac's death.

Here is the excerpt from R. Kelly's book that he has released for the public eye:

"Yo Pac!" I yelled at the top of my voice. He made a U-turn and jumped out of the car. "What up, baby?" he asked. "Just wanted to holla at you," I said. "Just had to tell you that I love everything you do." "Hey, man," said Pac, "coming from you that's a helluva compliment." "Lots of cats say rap and R&B live in different parts of the planet, but I don't see it that way, Pac. I see us all coming together. You feel me?" "Been feeling the same way. It's all the same thing. Beats, words, stories." "Man, we need to do an album." "Would love it." "I'm talkin' about a whole album. A whole concept. A big game-changing record." "You got it, Kells. Tell me what studio and when to be there." "Gonna send you some tracks," I said. "Don't need no tracks. Just need to know you wanna work with me. That's enough. We'll just let it do what it do." "God is good." "All the time," said Pac. We hugged and Pac went on his way."

As the year went on, we made tentative plans to meet, but the plans got messed up when his schedule or mine suddenly changed. That didn't change our hearts, though. Every time we talked, we talked about how this marriage of rap and R&B had to happen in a big way. We figured we were the two artists to pull it off. Pac understood that we came from the same 'hood. We had mutual respect and mutual love. I'd go around saying, "No one is better at the rap game than Pac." And Pac went around saying, "Kells is the most serious R&B thug out there." Come September, and it looked like my schedule was opening up just before the holidays. I set up a meeting with Pac for us to plot our strategy, get firm dates, and make the musical bomb that we both know would explode all around the world. But another bomb exploded that no one saw coming. I woke up on Sunday, September 8th, to the news that Pac had been shot in Vegas the Night before. He'd been rushed to the hospital. It didn't look good."

Source: hiphopblog.com