Singer R. Kelly, right, leaves with a bodyguard after the first day of jury selection on May 9 in his child pornography trial at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse in Chicago. (Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press)

A Baptist preacher and criminal justice student are among 12 jurors who have been selected for the trial of rapper R. Kelly, accused of having sex with a girl who may have been as young as 13.

Now that the jurors and their four alternatives have been chosen, the case in a Chicago court can finally proceed on May 20 after a six-year delay.

The 41-year-old singer, who was videotaped having sex, was indicted on child pornography charges in June 2002 after the tape surfaced.

The Grammy-winning artist, whose hit singles include I Believe I Can Fly, Ignition, Trapped in the Closet and Bump N' Grind, faces up to 15 years in prison if found guilty.

Prosecutors say the tape was made sometime between Jan. 1, 1998 and Nov.1, 2000 and the alleged victim was 13 at the time. That woman, who is now 23, claims she is not the person on the video.

In fact, Kelly's lawyers have not admitted that it's their client in the video either.

Race was an issue during jury selection. Defence lawyers said state prosecutors were trying to prevent African Americans from getting on the jury.

Among the 12 jurors are four African Americans: a man in his 40s who works as a chef; a man in his 50s who describes himself as a Christian; a female teacher's aide and a middle-aged woman who is married to a pastor and resides in the neighbourhood of Olympia Fields, where Kelly lives.

"I don't look at people like that," Kelly's head defence lawyer, Edward Genson, said this week. "It's all one colour to me."

The trial has been delayed because of several roadblocks: Kelly's lawyers argued over when the video was made, then the trial judge had an accident in 2006 and needed time to recuperate, and in February 2007, the singer's appendix burst just when he was to return to court.