The man who discovered R. Kelly is a man by the name of David Lincoln Hyatt, and he was the first to sign the R&B crooner to a record deal. Hyatt was also a convicted drug dealer, who ultimately ended up serving life in prison for trafficking truck loads of cocaine across states – a claim he adamantly denied for decades.
Hyatt passed away from stage four prostate cancer in August 2015 at age 65, while serving his life sentence. Soon after his death, some were debating whether or not R. Kelly was wrong for not trying to get him out of prison after Hyatt reportedly reached out to him for help. What could Kelly have done to actually make that happen? Not sure…but people are still debating about this one nonetheless.
David Lincoln Hyatt pictured center
It’s actually really interesting that Kelly’s career was originally funded by drug money and that this guy is the man who is responsible for getting Kelly signed to Jive Records, who Kelly is still signed to today. There’s a whole lot going on with his story, so we wanted to share this article with you to see what your thoughts were on it. Via Miami New times:
According to his son Davin, [David Lincoln Hyatt] paid for an apartment for Kelly while he was recording his music. In 1989, Kelly released his first single, “Why You Wanna Play Me,” with the group Mentally Gifted Men on Hyatt’s label. Hyatt was also instrumental in getting Kelly signed to New York-based Jive Records…in the late 1990s.
“Kelly’s talent did it, but at the end of the day, I’m a firm believer that timing is everything,” Davin tells New Times. “His time with Tavdash was right on time, and my father signed him to Jive records.”
Four years later, Hyatt was arrested. He was a first-time offender accused by the feds of running truckloads of cocaine between Miami and Akron, Ohio, on the side. Hyatt’s Miami studio and New York home were raided. Davin remembers opening the front door to the sight of several FBI agents, guns drawn. “You’ll never see your father ever again,” Davin remembers one agent saying to him.
Pleading not guilty, Hyatt was tried in federal court in 1993 and convicted on one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. Hyatt received the maximum sentence: life in prison without parole.
R. Kelly
Davin appealed to several well-known industry names, including Russell Simmons and Kelly himself, hoping Kelly would at least give his father a shoutout onstage, but it never happened. In his father’s final days, Davin pleaded via Twitter with Kelly and even President Obama to get his father released from prison….
Hyatt was profiled in a November 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union on nonviolent criminals serving life in prison without parole. According to court documents, federal Judge William Dowd said he had no choice but to abide by the federal sentencing guidelines and give Hyatt a life sentence.
“I think like almost every other district court judge in the United States,” Dowd said during sentencing, “at times we have expressed frustration with the straitjacket the guidelines represent, but clearly that’s a decision that’s way beyond the power of this court to make.”
David Lincoln Hyatt
In the latter part of his prison sentence, Hyatt developed prostate cancer that spread to the rest of his body. The cancer went into remission but returned, and Hyatt was denied several compassionate releases from prison up until one week before he died while incarcerated at Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina, according to his son.
Recent court documents and filings found in Hyatt’s belongings indicate to Davin that his father continued to fight to the very end.
Davin says he was not informed of his father’s death until more than a day later. He received a letter August 12 from the warden expressing condolences for his father’s passing.
“David made R. Kelly,” [record producer, Marcus Dupree] says. “He wouldn’t even have a career if it wasn’t for David Hyatt.”
Hyatt is survived by his children, Davin, Maxvon, Tasha, and Davia.
Seems like there’s more to this story that we don’t know.
– First of all, it’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room- Why was David Lincoln Hyatt serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole if he was a non-violent first time offender? That just goes to show how jacked up and unjust the judicial system can be sometimes. Not saying that it was right for him to slang drugs from Miami to Akron (IF that is true), but the time should simply fit the crime, and the criminal.
-Second elephant in the room: We would need more info about David and Kelly’s relationship, because right now it sounds like both men had taken completely different paths in their lives and didn’t have much of a relationship at all for many years.
Our condolences go out to the family of David Lincoln Hyatt. His punishment didn’t seem to fit his crime based on the fact that he was a first-time nonviolent offender, but unfortunately he ended up paying for it until his death.
