CHICAGO -- Jurors in R. Kelly's trial sat motionless as they watched the sex tape at the center of his child pornography case.

Prosecutors played the 27-minute homemade video just hours after opening statements.

Kelly, 41, is accused of videotaping himself having sex with an underage girl who prosecutors maintain was as young as 13 years old when the tape was made between Jan. 1, 1998, and Nov. 1, 2000.

Prosecutors said that the man in the video is Kelly, but the singer claims that's not him on the tape.

At the start of the videotape, the man hands the female money and she mouths the words, "Thank you." She is often blank-faced and impassive. The man speaks to the female in a hushed, monotone voice, and she calls him "Daddy."

A grim-looking Kelly appeared to intently watch the entire footage on a small monitor placed on the defense table. He occasionally rocked in his chair and rested his chin in his hand.

Earlier in the day, a prosecutor warned jurors Tuesday that they would have to watch a videotape depicting an "underage child performing sex acts that you have never seen before."

"A child doesn't choose to be violated and placed on a videotape, a videotape that will live on forever -- long after this child becomes an adult," Cook County prosecutor Shauna Boliker told jurors as opening statements got under way in the long-delayed trial.

Defense attorneys, however, told jurors in their opening statements that Kelly is not the man on the tape. The defense also told jurors that the female authorities allege is depicted on the tape is not that person at all.

That's a claim that's also been made by the 23-year-old woman prosecutors say was a minor at the time of the taping. She denies she's the girl on the video.

The trial has been delayed repeatedly since the tape was mailed to the Chicago Sun-Times in 2002. The newspaper turned it over to authorities, and Kelly was indicted later that year.

The singer, who has pleaded not guilty, faces up to 15 years if convicted.

Boliker repeatedly referred to the female depicted in the tape as a "child" and Kelly by his birth name of Robert Kelly. She alleged that the singer took advantage of the inherent trust children place in adults, and that the female on the tape performed acts that Kelly "commanded" her to perform.

The videotape, she said, is "child pornography that was created, staged, produced and starred in by the defendant that sits before you, Robert Kelly."

After Boliker's opening statements, jurors listened to one of Kelly's defense attorneys, Sam Adam Jr.

Adam told jurors that the videotape in evidence is "at best a copy of a copy of a copy" and that Kelly is not the man on the tape.

"Not a single witness can tell you that is him on the tape," Adam said. He also said the FBI could not identify the man on the tape as Kelly.

What's more, he said, Kelly has a "significant" mole in the middle of his lower back that has been there since childhood. But he said the man on the tape did not have the mole.

"There is no mole on his back," Adam said. "Robert isn't that man on the tape."

Adam also told jurors the female that prosecutors claim is depicted on the video "is not a victim because she is not the girl on that tape."

Kelly, with an entourage in tow, arrived at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse about 90 minutes before opening statements were to begin. He wore a navy pin-striped suit and blue and orange striped tie, and his hair was in corn rows.

Kelly won a Grammy in 1997 for the gospel-tinged "I Believe I Can Fly," and is also known for such songs as "Bump N' Grind," "Ignition" and "Trapped in the Closet," a multipart saga about the sexual secrets of a lively and ever-expanding cast of characters.

Jury selection finished last week with prosecutors and defense attorneys accusing each other of trying to stack the panel along racial lines. Eight of the seated jurors were white and four were black, although it was not immediately clear the jury's racial makeup with one juror being replaced Tuesday morning by one of four alternates.

One Juror Dismissed

Opening statements in the trial were delayed Tuesday when a juror was dismissed after saying that sitting on the panel would leave her unable to pay her bills.

Asked whether her financial worries would cause her to not pay attention during the trial, the juror said, "Very much so."

Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan dismissed the juror -- who said after using up her 30 hours of vacation time, she'd be without compensation -- and replaced her with one of four alternates.