Soulacoaster

by R. Kelly

  “I can’t go home,” I said. “I came to sing.”

  “They all through singing in there.”

  I let out a big sigh. I thought about leaving, but something inside me said no. Instead I started singing my mother’s favorite song, “Amazing Grace”; sang it loud and proud. The security guard looked at me like I was crazy, but before he could say anything, this lady showed up. I recognized her as the actress from Good Times, who played Penny’s birth mama on the show. Her name was Chip Fields and Penny was the hen-11-year-old Janet Jackson. In real life, her daughter, Kim Fields, played Tootie on the ’80’s show The Facts of Life. Turned out she had a big part in the play, too.

  “Wow,” said Miss Fields, “you can really sing.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Let me give you a script. I want to hear you read for this part.”

  The word “read” was a dagger to my heart. I couldn’t let her know I couldn’t read. Couldn’t let her see me stumble over words I didn’t understand.

  “Oh, I can’t read today,” I said, scrambling for an excuse, “’cause…’cause I forgot my glasses.”

  “No problem,” said Miss Fields. “You just take the script home with you and go over it tonight. Come back tomorrow when the producer arrives from Los Angeles. That’s Barry Hankerson. You’ve heard of him, haven’t you?”

  “No, ma’am,” I answered.

  “He manages the Winans, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, and Gladys Knight. He’s going to love your voice. There’s the part of a young preacher in this play that you’re perfect for. So let me give you five dollars for carfare. Please show up tomorrow at noon.”

  “I can’t read the script”

  I took the money and thanked Miss Fields again.

  “You’re forgetting the script,” she reminded me.

  I went back and got the script. The script, of course, was a problem.

  “I can’t read the script,” I told Mom soon as I got home. “Every time I look at it, the words start wiggling, and it’s like being back at school. This is my big chance, and I’m about to lose it.”

  “There’s no need for you to lose it, son. You just need to tell the truth. Tell them you can sing better than anyone, but your reading’s not the best.”

  “It’s the worst.”

  “They’ll help you with your reading, son. Just go over there tomorrow and tell the truth.”

  I was nervous. Couldn’t even fall asleep for all the butterflies in my stomach. I opened up the script and tried making sense of the story, but that didn’t work. I couldn’t keep the characters straight; couldn’t comprehend the meaning; didn’t know what the play was saying. Tomorrow was going to be hell.

  Tomorrow turned into today. I was out of the bed by 8 A.M., still trying to figure out the script. It was no use. I decided not to show up. Then I changed my mind. I had to go through with the audition. But how?

  Riding the bus on the way over, I kept hearing my mother’s words: “Just tell the truth.”

  When I arrived, Miss Fields was happy to see me.

  “You study the script?” she asked.

  “The truth is …” I hesitated. “The truth is that I don’t read very well.”

  “Don’t worry about that, baby,” she said. “I know a lot of people in show business who don’t read well. We can help you with that. Don’t worry about reading today. Just sing. The producer’s here and he wants to hear you sing.”

  “Sing what?”

  “Sing ‘Amazing Grace’ like you did yesterday.”

  I went out onto the stage of the Regal Theater. I looked out into the audience, but it was too dark to see who was sitting there. I took a deep breath and sang “Amazing Grace.”

  “That’s it!” I heard a man’s voice cry. “He’s got the part.”

  I saw a man walking toward the stage. Medium built, light skin, eyebrows looked like they were stitched together. Man, was he dressed sharp.

  “I’m Barry Hankerson,” he said, “and I’m offering you $700 a week to do this play—plus expenses.”

  I was so green I didn’t know what “plus expenses” meant. I thought it was his way of being slick.

  Trying to prove that I was no one’s fool, I said, “I can’t go with that ‘plus-expenses’ business.”

  Everyone laughed at me.

  “Don’t worry about it, son,” said Hankerson. “We’ll get all the details worked out. You just come back tomorrow.”

  I ran home and told everyone the good news, but the next day when I showed up at the theater, I decided I needed to take another approach.

  “Look here, Mr. Hankerson,” I said. “I’m not really right for this part. Can’t read the lines very well, and I’m not good at memorizing. I’m an artist. I got me a bag of demos, and I just want you to hear three or four of my songs. Will you do that for me, sir?”

  “I will,” he said. “I’ll listen to them right now.”

  I pulled three cassettes out of a bag. The first was an early version of “Turn Back the Hands of Time.” The second was “Honey Love,” and the third was “Dedicated.”

  Hankerson’s assistant took the tapes and, one after another, put them into a boom box. Hankerson stood the whole time, listening to every note. When the last song played, he said, “You’re right. You’re an artist. You’ve got a real gift, son.”

  That audition turned out to be the first time I met the man who would become my manager.

  PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

  After MGM, I had to start from scratch again. I still thought a group was a good idea because groups were still the big sellers. My new life began with me singing at Chicago’s Cotton Club on S. Michigan Avenue, a joint once operated by Ralph “Bottles” Capone, Al Capone’s older brother.

  “Hear you’re interested in forming a group?” a guy called Andre Boikins said to me one night after a gig.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, me and two friends sing and dance a little.”

  “Cool. I wanna hear y’all. How about tomorrow?”

  “Tell me where and when.”

  We met in a workout room I was using to rehearse. Dre was right. His boys, Earl Robinson and Rick Webster, were okay, so I started training them.

  Training was rough. I told them from jump street, “Fellas, this ain’t gonna be no picnic. We’re going for the gold. We’re gonna train like it’s the Olympics, every day in every way. I’m not interested in us just being good. We’ve got to be great. We’re competing with the best groups in the country, whether they be in New York, Hollywood, or Atlanta. I’ll be calling practice not once a day, but three times a day. We’ll be hitting it not five days a week, but seven. I’m talking about the steps, the harmonies, stage presence, the whole bit. And I’m also talking about physical training. We are more than just singers and dancers. We’re athletes.”

  Maybe they didn’t believe me that night, but when we started running the rocks along Lake Michigan, they believed me then. We were doing push-ups and sit-ups like the Chicago Bulls getting ready for the playoffs.

  As I was working on putting my new group together, I was approached by a well-known house music DJ named Wayne Williams, who ran a small office and recording studio for Jive Records in Chicago.

  Wayne’s really the guy who discovered me. He had heard me with MGM at a backyard barbecue at a residence in North Chicago, even before we signed to the other record deal. He would later tell reporters that he was blown away when he saw us performing. Somehow, he picked up on the fact that I was the leader of the group and was impressed with our energy, choreography, and showmanship.

  “I could tell right away this kid had the eye of the tiger,” Williams said.

  Wayne had kept track of me over the months and followed what I was doing during my MGM days. In the early ’80s, Jive Records had some R&B hits with Billy Ocean, but by 1991, Jive was mostly known as one of the biggest labels for rap music with Boogie Down Productions, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and Kool Mo Dee
. Because of the deal I’d been a part of with MGM, I still had some obligations to another record company. But when Jive signed me they bought me out of my previous contract.

  I named the new group R. Kelly and Public Announcement—the concept was my vision, with me writing all the songs, singing all the leads, and doing all the producing. Ten months after signing with Jive, our album, Born into the 90’s, debuted in 1992. There I was, 24 years old, on the cover, out front with my fresh fade, suited in leather, surrounded by my boys—Public Announcement.

  My dream had finally become reality: We had an honest-to-goodness album.

  The sound was very much both of and ahead of its time. Of course New Jack Swing was represented, but so were my R&B roots. With the release of the first single, the New Jack Swing hit, “She’s Got That Vibe,” folks kept comparing my voice to Aaron Hall from Guy. It wasn’t a coincidence that I sounded like Aaron. Guy was hitting big, and I wanted some of those hits. After all, Aaron sounded like Charlie Wilson of the Gap Band—and I liked Charlie. I liked Aaron. I could do what they did. If I could absorb Donny Hathaway and Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder when I was just a little kid, as a young man I could sure as hell be a sponge that could soak up what was hot on the radio now. Also on that first album is the ballad “Dedicated,” which I had written years earlier for my mother. If you listen to my voice now and listen to it on either song from back then, you’ll see it’s really got the same tone.

  Jive was a company with an international view, and the owner, Clive Calder, said he not only wanted to break us out in America, he wanted to promote us all over Europe and the rest of the world, too; so before I knew it, I was headed for Europe.

  I could hardly wait to get to England, but I had a deep fear of flying. I still do. Up until now, I had flown a few times in the United States, but the more I flew, the deeper my fear grew. I’m a person that likes to do things that make sense, and it didn’t make sense to me how a heavy plane could stay up in the air like that. It just didn’t feel right. I was less fearful, though, when my mother was sitting next to me—so I made sure that my Mom came along on the tour. Her presence always had a calming effect on me. The problem was, my mother wasn’t crazy about flying either, so it ended up that the first time that I took a real drink was on that flight to England. Mom and I both took a shot of Hennessy and conked out.

  I’d never been out of the country before. I imagined huge crowds and pretty girls chasing us back to our hotel, but my imagination was racing way ahead of reality. To say that our first show didn’t attract a huge crowd would be an understatement—there were only about five people in the audience. My group members were crushed. To this day, I’ve never allowed numbers to affect my performance. At intermission I told the group: “I don’t care if there’s only one person out there, we gotta sing like there are thousands.”

  Then they started playing our first single, “She’s Got That Vibe,” on the radio, and at the next show, maybe 20 people showed up.

  My guys were still down. “Get up,” I said. “It’s gonna get better. I guarantee it.”

  By the end of our run, “Vibe’?” was all over London—becoming a top 3 record in England—and now the venues were packed.

  By the time we got to Holland, “She’s Got That Vibe” was one of the top-10 best-selling records in the country. Fans were screaming our name in the streets, and women were waiting for us in the lobby. As much as I wanted attention, I’d never encountered anything like it before. Sudden fame and the blitz of fans’ affection tripped me out and made me a little anxious at first.

  “Your dream’s coming true, Rob,” my mother said on the plane home. “Just like I knew it would.”

  Back in the U.S.A, “Vibe” was all over the radio and the video was playing on all the video shows in heavy rotation. I was eager to see the reaction of the people back home. I wanted to see if I’d be recognized. First I went to a predominantly white mall. No one recognized me.

  Then I went to Evergreen Mall in a suburb of Chicago: back then we called it “Everblack” ’cause at the time it was the black mall. (It was the first indoor shopping mall in America.) At Evergreen, I went to a clothing store for high school girls. I figured someone would recognize me there. I stared a girl right in the face and even started singing my song. I wanted her to say, “Oh, are you the one who sings ’She’s Got That Vibe?’” But she didn’t say a thing.

  Our second single, “Honey Love,” had a video behind it that we shot in L.A. I’ve always loved movies, and I’ve always been very involved in the storyline and direction of all my music videos. For the “She’s Got That Vibe” video, I created all the choreography; and on the way to the shoot in New York, I wanted to give us something different that no other group had, something to give us an edge. So we stopped at a store on the way to the shoot and I picked up a bunch of flashlights that we rigged onto our hats. Everybody who saw the “Vibe” video asked us where we got them. We continued to use that look at shows, and we used them again in the “Honey Love” video. Light and the use of it, or lack of it, has always played a big role in my life.

  There were rumors that Miss Halle Berry plays my love interest in the “Honey Love” video. But let me put that rumor to rest; that’s not Ms. Berry. It’s a video actress who looks a little something like her.

  When the “Honey Love” video started getting played in Chicago, I went back to Evergreen Mall. This time I went with my crew. When we got to the record store, I had one of my posse yell out, “Hey, there’s R. Kelly over there.” The girls came running. Man, it was a great feeling. My guys said, “He’s only signing albums, no singles.” The store sold a ton of albums that day. When we went on tour, we did the same routine in record stores all over the country. Meanwhile, when I went to white malls, I still got no love. Eventually I would, but it took time.

  My time with Public Announcement was good. Born into the 90’s sold a million copies; it had reached the #3 slot on the Top R&B album chart and was certified platinum.

  “YOU’RE MY GIRL”

  I said those words to Lonneice time and time again. I said them because they were true. Neice inspired all my early songs.

  I made enough money for me and Neice to rent an apartment together in a nice building on 75th and Lake Shore Drive. I felt like we were the Jeffersons on TV living in a high-rise up in the sky. I was rolling.

  When we wanted a special night, we got a room at the Hyde Park Inn. Staying there was like being out of town. Plus, hotel rooms can heat up the loving. The loving between me and Neice was scorching hot.

  Then why did I do what I did?

  One night I found myself in that same room—the special room that me and Neice loved to share—with another woman. My plan was just to hit it and quit it. Just a couple of hours of pleasure I didn’t want to pass up.

  Somehow, though, Neice learned I was there and called the room.

  “What’re you doin’ in our room without me, Rob?” She was crying.

  I had to think quick. “I’m here to meet with Tony! Toni! Toné! They’re coming over here.”

  “Who the fuck is Tony! Toni! Toné!?”

  “You don’t know who Tony! Toni! Toné! are?” Now I was getting mad that she didn’t know who my alibi was!

  “I don’t care who the fuck they are! What does that have to do with you being in our room without me?”

  “I rented the room ’cause Tony! Toni! Toné! are coming up here to audition me. They’re looking for a new singer.”

  “Well, I want to meet Tony! Toni! Toné!” said Neice.

  “They already come and gone.”

  “I’m coming up there anyway.”

  “You more than welcome, baby.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Like lightning, I got the chick out of the room. I ran around like a crazy man, found the maid to change the sheets and the towels. I had to make it seem like I was the only one who’d been there.

  By the time Neice arrived, I was cool. I thought I�
�d fooled her.

  But I hadn’t.

  She knew.

  As my mother used to say, “Busted, disgusted, and couldn’t be trusted.” Women always know when their men are cheating. And, like they say, for every action, there s a reaction.

  Neice reacted by doing what I did—she found someone else.

  At first I didn’t want to believe it.

  But then came proof. One night she and her best friend were supposed to meet me and her friend’s boyfriend. They didn’t show up. Something was wrong. I went to Neice’s mama’s house, but her folks didn’t know where she was.

  “Lonneice and her girlfriend said they’ll be coming back here,” said her grandmother.

  The other guy and I turned into detectives. I found a hidden place to park our car. We sat there and waited. Finally, at 4 A.M., a big white Mercedes pulled up. A guy was driving, and Neice was sitting next to him. Her girl and another dude were in the back seat.

  When the ladies got out and the guys pulled away, I popped out.

  “What are you doing here?” Neice asked me.

  “Wondering what the hell you’re doing out till four in the morning.”

  “Having fun.”

  “I figured. Fun with who?”

  “Rob, I’m not gonna stand here and get cross-examined by you of all people. You have no right.”

  At this moment, I knew Neice was right. I thought of the times I’d fooled around behind her back. I had nothing more to say.

  We tried to work it out, but I knew she was fed up. Her mind and heart had checked out of our love.

  A week later, something happened that upset her and I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then I found out that the guy Lonneice had been creeping with wasn’t treating her right, and that upset me.

  A couple of nights later, I got an unexpected call, “Look, I got no beef with you, man, but I gotta tell you that your girl’s confused. She don’t know who she wants, you or me. It ain’t me who’s chasin’ her. It’s her who’s chasin’ me.”