R. Kelly Ordered to Use Royalties to Pay Ex-Wife Child Support

R. Kelly's been ordered to use the money from his extensive music catalog to pay his ex-wife child support.

According to legal docs, obtained by TMZ, a judge just ordered the R&B singer to use his royalties from entities such as BMI and Sony to pay Drea Kelly the $20,833 he owes her each month.

You'll recall ... Drea's been coming after Kelly for back child support, and at one point he was so far behind on payments he ended up in jail. He eventually squared things up for that tab, but he's gotta keep up with the monthly payments.

According to the docs, Kelly's asking the court to cut him a little slack, but for now the judge says the dough must be drawn from those hefty royalties.

As we've reported, Kelly's had plenty of financial issues ... scrambling to come up with cash for bail, child support and even a retainer for famed defense lawyer Tom Mesereau ... which never happened.