by R. Kelly
I never judged or knocked his hustle because I felt like whatever he did didn’t concern me. Besides that, he respected me to the point where he never involved me in any of his business. He would pick me up every Saturday morning and we would go hoop. And we would always talk about music on the way there and on the way back. What was new and what was hot. What songs we liked and what songs we didn’t. He loved music just as much as I did, except he was not musically gifted.
He would always ask me to sing for some of his family members or even sometimes some of his girlfriends. The family members I was cool with singing for, but the girlfriends I was not so cool with because, sometimes after I would sing for them, I would feel in my spirit—and I could also see it in their eyes—that they wanted me, and that would be a little uncomfortable for me. But because he was my boy, I’d sing.
Coming from playing basketball one day, my friend took me on a drive. We were on Interstate 57, way south of the city, heading to the suburbs. He had business out there. We were going down Lincoln Highway, through the village of Matteson, to a place called Olympia Fields where the houses are big, the lawns lush and green, the vibe classy and calm. I was about 16 or 17 years old.
Suddenly I noticed a huge mansion made from giant logs. It was like a log cabin that grew up to be a mansion. The house was way back behind a huge gate on a plot of land bigger than a football field.
“Stop,” I said.
I got out of the car and walked up to the gate, amazed by what I saw. At my age if you had told me that this was heaven—compared to where I lived—I would have believed it. I put my hands on the gate and just stared at this house. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.
“This is the McDonald’s house,” said my friend. “The guy who runs a bunch of McDonald’s franchises owns it.” I learned much later that James Maros, one of the first 50 owner/operators of McDonald’s restaurants, owned the “McDonald’s House.”
“This is gonna be my house one day,” I said.
“Yeah, young blood, you could have a house just like this.”
I looked back at him and said, “No, I’m gonna have this house.”
“Say what?”
“I just know I will.”
“You’re crazy, Rob.”
I didn’t argue. I didn’t have to. I knew it was going to happen.
My friend started talking, but I held on to the gate and closed my eyes and began to drown him out, telling myself that when I opened my eyes, this house would be mine. And then we left—back to the ’hood and the hustle.
SHOOTING STARS
All my life I’d heard about the city of Los Angeles and all of its glory. From music stars to movie stars, it was the land of fortune and fame. Although the stories I had heard about it seemed like a book of fairy tales, I wanted—and had to have—my name written into the story.
I knew L.A. was a step in the right direction. I had been hearing about it as long as I could remember. Miss McLin always talked about L.A. and big-time producers like Quincy Jones.
There was a producer, who was making a name for himself in Chicago, who asked me if I wanted to go to L.A. He had put together a five-member group that needed a lead singer. I auditioned and got the gig. It was 1984, and five-member groups like New Edition were hot. “Cool It Now” was the #1 R&B song in the country.
“Can you write songs as good as that?” asked the producer.
“I can,” I said. And I did. I wrote four killer songs for the group. Another writer named Chuck E. Booker had also written a bunch of tunes for us to sing.
We flew out to L.A. In Chicago, it was winter; in L.A. it was summer. L.A. was all sunshine and palm trees. We stayed in a little apartment where we slept on the floor, but who cared? I was in L.A., baby. I was on my way.
The producer told us he’d locked up a deal for us at A&M Records, same label where Quincy Jones himself produced all those funky hits for the Brothers Johnson.
“Right now the label is listening to everything we’ve written. They’re deciding which songs should go on the record.”
While they were deciding, we went to a photographer’s studio for our first publicity shot. Man, this was Hollywood!
Next day the producer came in and announced the songs A&M wanted us to record. All four of mine had been chosen. When I looked at the list, though, I didn’t see my name next to my songs. I didn’t get any credit.
“It’s not about individual credit,” said the producer. “It’s a group effort.”
“The singing is,” I said, “but I wrote those songs alone.”
“Sorry, Rob, but the deal’s done. The songwriting and publishing are part of the group deal. I can’t give you any ownership of that. But don’t worry. We’ll be getting an advance. There’ll be enough money for everyone.”
That night I called my mother.
“It doesn’t seem right to me,” she said.
“That’s what I think. But we’re set to go in the studio in a few days. What can I do now?”
“Demand your credit.”
“I did. They won’t give me any.”
“Then just come on home, son.”
“Just get up and leave?”
“Well, look at it this way, Rob. If they screw you now, they’re gonna screw you later. Cheating is cheating, Robert. I wouldn’t mess with these folk.”
Three days before the recording session, I told the group goodbye. They were furious. They accused me of dogging them. But as far as I’m concerned, I wasn’t dogging anyone. I was doing what was right.
I did what I’ve always wound up doing: I came home to Chicago.
I wasn’t home all that long when I felt like I had to try again. L.A. had kicked my butt once, but I wasn’t about to quit.
“I know you’re discouraged,” said Mom, “and you’ve got every right to be. The music business is cold-blooded, son. It’s testing you. It’s saying, 'How bad you want it, boy?’ If you want it bad enough, you’ll stay with it. If you don’t want it that bad, you’ll quit. But I just can’t see my baby quitting.”
Her “baby” wasn’t quitting. I was focusing on the future just like she taught me. I was going back to L.A, super-intent on coming home with a record deal.
“I won’t be gone all that long,” I told Lonneice.
“I don’t want you there at all, Rob.”
“I’ve gotta keep after it,” I said. “I’ve gotta catch my dream.”
“As long as I’m still a part of it.”
“Baby,” I told her, “you are the dream.”
“I want to come with you,” said Neice.
“Wish you could, baby,” I said. “But I don’t even have enough money for me. How could I support the two of us? As soon as something happens, though, I’m sending for you. I promise.”
“The music business is cold-blooded, son. Its testing you. Its saying, ‘How bad you want it, boy?’”
STARS
I looked up at the sky from Venice Beach on the west side of Los Angeles. The midnight air was sweet, the weather mild. The ocean breeze perfect. No one was bothering me. I was out there on the sand, laid out on a blanket. That big old full moon shone down on me like a giant spotlight. The sound of the roaring waves was hypnotizing. I closed my eyes and thought, I can do it, I can make it, I can make it in Cali.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a place to stay, that I was living homeless on the beach. It didn’t matter that I was carrying my clothes in a paper bag. Neice and her folks sent me enough money so I could eat and buy a few clothes. When it came time to enter an amateur contest in clubs like the Red Onion, I would clean up. I got on stage and killed.
But dammit to hell, I never won. Never.
I never won a single contest in L.A. I knew I was better than the other contestants. I knew I had talent, but seemed like I was the only one who knew it.
I got a better response on the streets than in the clubs. As a street performer in Venice Beach, I attracted crowds. With no keyboard or guitar,
I just belted out a big ballad like “Distant Lover” and wound up with a few bucks. Of course the competition in LA. was fiercer than Chicago. There were jugglers, comics, and painters; there was every form of artist imaginable hawking his or her wares alongside me.
I missed home. I missed my mother and Lonneice. I missed my crew and the comforts of Chicago. But I wasn’t going back, not this time, not without some sign of success.
I was like a junkyard dog. Once I got my teeth into something, I wouldn’t let go. I kept hustling. One thing led to another and I got the name of a big-shot music exec at Warner Records, Benny Medina. Everyone had heard of Benny Medina. At the age of 24, Benny worked for Motown and was considered Berry Gordy’s protégé. He worked with artists like Ray Charles, Rick James, Madonna, Fleetwood Mac, Biz Markie, and Big Daddy Kane. The TV show, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, would be based on his life growing up.
Benny could definitely sign me to a deal.
Benny agreed to see me. On the phone, he said, “Come to my office. I’ll see what you can do for me. And then you’ll see what I can do for you.”
I arrived a half-hour early. Sitting in a chair outside Medina’s office was a light-skinned black guy, waiting for Benny just like me.
We started talking. He said he sang.
“How ’bout you?” he asked.
“I’m a singer, too,” I said.
He went in first. Half-hour later it was my turn.
Benny Medina was cool. Said, “Go over to the piano and play whatever you like.”
“I’d like to play my originals,” I said.
“I want to hear them, Robert.”
I played him 12 songs. Benny was knocked out.
“Man, you’re something, Robert,” he said. “You’re great. These are brilliant songs and your voice is tremendous. Come with me right now so I can introduce you to everyone in the building.”
I was on cloud nine. Benny took me to meet all the other execs and producers. “This is Robert Kelly,” he said. “Our next superstar.”
“Does this mean I’m in?” I asked Benny.
“Yes, sir. Just give me a week or two, and I’ll get right back to you with the papers.”
I called practically everyone I knew in Chicago.
My mother said, “If it’s gonna take him a little while to work up your contract, come home and do the waiting here.”
I had just enough for a plane ticket, so I flew home. I had moved into the basement of Lonneice’s Grandma Cherrill’s house. Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop thinking about that pending contract from Warner Records and Mr. Benny Medina.
A week passed. Then two. Then three.
I called Medina’s office. He was out. Called again. He was on the phone. Called a third time. He was gone for the day. Another week passed. I kept calling. Benny kept ducking.
By week five, I was feeling desperate. I was calling every day. His secretary was so sick of me, the second she heard my voice, she said, “Mr. Medina cannot come to the phone.”
“Why can’t he just tell me what’s happening?”
“He is telling you,” she said. “You’re just not listening.”
“But he’s not saying anything.”
“That’s the point.”
BIG BREAK
I spent my late teens missing the brass ring. My early twenties were the same story.
One day soon after I got back to Chicago, we were all sitting around watching music videos on TV at my mother’s house. The video for the song called “Off On Your Own” came on.
“Wait a damn second!” I shouted, jumping off the old sofa. “Who is that?”
“That’s Al B. Sure,” said Neice.
“That’s the light-skinned guy who was sitting next to me outside Benny Medina’s office!”
I’d tried, but I couldn’t find love in Hollywood. Every single door—and I mean every single door—was opened and closed on me. A hundred talent shows, and I was never the winner. A hundred possible breaks, but none of them ever broke my way.
When I got back from L.A., I decided to take a different approach. I did my homework and studied the market. Solo singers like Jeffrey Osborne weren’t as popular as they used to be, and since New Edition came out a few years earlier, the group look was on the rise. Now you’d hear The Boys doing “Dial My Heart.” Tony! Toni! Tone! hit with “Little Walter.” Johnny Gill, once a straight-up R&B singer, joined New Edition, and got hits with “If It Isn’t Love” and “You’re Not My Kind of Girl.” Teddy Riley’s group Guy was all over the radio.
I decided I was going to get the break I’d been looking for with a group.
In 1987,1 found three guys who could dance and sing. I put the group together, became the lead singer, and then set to work.
“You got a name, baby?” asked Neice.
“R. Kelly and MGM, for Musically Gifted Men.”
“Why R. Kelly? Why not just Robert Kelly?”
Maybe it was the stories my mother used to tell me about great soul singers of the past or maybe it was those trips to plays and operas that Miss McLin took me to. Whatever it was, I knew instinctively that I needed a hook to get noticed.
“‘Robert’ is too ordinary. ‘R’ sounds more mysterious. It’s got more intrigue behind it. People will be asking … who is this R. Kelly? ‘R’ will get lots more attention than ‘Robert.’”
During the mid-1980s and into the ’90s, New Jack Swing—a sound that for the first time blended R&B melodies with hip-hop beats—was all the rage. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and Teddy Riley were considered its pioneers. The sound of music was changing and exciting. Rap music beats were influencing R&B music and creating something new.
I wrote a bunch of songs incorporating the beats that defined the New Jack feel, as well as a couple of ballads, which my mother loved.
The group idea was working. It wasn’t long before opportunity came our way. R. Kelly and MGM started making some noise. We blew up. In Chicago, we were working practically every night. The ladies were screaming, but the money wasn’t coming in yet. Our manager even signed us to a small record company based in New York and Miami. They put out a single and even made a video for a song I wrote called “Why You Wanna Play Me?”
But just as things started going our way, jealousy worked its way through the group. Because I was doing all the creative work—writing and producing the songs, singing lead, choreographing, and imaging the group—I felt envy building behind my back. I heard whispers and saw unhappy glances.
I knew there were problems, but in 1990—when we were asked to go on The Big Break, a TV talent show in L.A. hosted by Natalie Cole where first prize was $100,000—I put those issues aside.
We went out to the West Coast. The contest had three levels, and you had to win the first two to get to the finals. We won the first round, hands down. Then we won the second. Now it was time for the third, the one that would pay us $100,000.
Our uniforms were okay, but I didn’t think they were flashy enough for the finals. So, on my own, I went out and started street performing and, just like before, made good money. I took my earnings and bought killer outfits, custom made by Barbara Bates, a Chicago-based designer who was making clothes for all the stars. We were ready.
Back in the dressing room in the Hollywood studio, an hour before we were due to sing, the other guys came up and said, “Rob, we don’t think it’s fair that you get half the money and we got to split the other half between us. We think if we win this $100 thou, we should split it four ways.”
“You decided to just spring this on me, minutes before the show?” I asked.
“We just want to get it straight. We want what’s fair.”
I was pissed. “I write the songs,” I said. “I do the arrangements. I’m the lead singer. I create the steps. I give you your parts. Rehearse those parts. Tell you if you’re flat or sharp. I do 90 percent of the work and you want me to have 25 percent of the reward? No, sir.”
Words were exchanged. Fists started flying. We
finally cooled it, and I said, “Tell you what, fellas. You guys go out without me. If you win, you keep everything. Or I’ll go out alone. If I win, I’ll keep everything. That’s fair, right?”
My offer made them even madder. They didn’t accept. They accused me of manipulation.
Meanwhile, Natalie Cole had heard all the noise coming from our dressing room and decided to cancel our appearance.
“Look,” I told the guys, “this is crazy. We’ll figure out the splits later. Let’s forget this fighting and just go out there and kill.”
Everyone agreed, and we sweet-talked Natalie into letting us back on.
We went out and killed.
We won! The Big Break was ours. We went back to Chicago conquering heroes.
Nothing left to do but wait for my share of the prize money to come.
I waited.
And I waited some more.
AMAZING GRACE
Hate is heavy and, in my heart, I’m not a hater.
I’ve got a loving nature, a forgiving nature, but it was hard to drop my upset when my share from The Big Break prize money was so slow in coming. I decided to be patient, though, because my mother said patience always pays.
I was patient for a month, and then another month, and a third. Soon my patience was gone. Somehow the money disappeared. I didn’t get a dime of the $100,000 in cash and prizes. For all I know, it got lost in the mail, but I blamed MGM. I decided that I couldn’t deal with them anymore. Our manager decided to stick with the group. I had no choice but to forget MGM—forever.
Around this same time, I went to an audition at the original Regal Theater where a producer was putting on a gospel musical, “Don’t Get God Started,” starring Vanessa Bell Armstrong and Marvin Winans of the Winans—two gospel greats. I figured I sang good enough to get a part. But I missed the bus and arrived late. The security guard told me the auditions were over and to go home.