Soulacoaster

by R. Kelly

  In the beginning I was a little worried about whether the actors would accept me acting with them and giving them direction, because this was my first time really working outside a music video; but it was smooth, and I gained a lot of confidence doing Trapped. And my co-director, Jim Swaffield, had some great ideas about how we could achieve some of the things I wanted to do without having Hollywood money to do it. But I’m definitely ready for the movies now. Even before I was a singer, an artist, I wanted to be a director. I love telling stories, and Trapped is quite a story.

  On TP.3, I included the first five chapters on CD, and the initial run of the album included a DVD of the mini-series. Before it was over, there were 22 chapters—and, to be honest, it’s still not over. The chapters were more than songs; they were scripts. Soon they were long-form videos where I played five different roles—Sylvester, old man Randolph, Reverend Mosley, James Evans, and Pimp Lucious. Everything about Trapped challenged me—the writing, directing, acting, production, and the way we packaged and presented it to the public.

  The plotting of Trapped had me in creative heaven. I could let my mind fly free at a million miles an hour. When I’m working on Trapped, I put the music on the speakers in the studio and the story just comes. In the beginning, I had no idea what was going to happen next; the story wrote itself and I was as curious as everybody else to find out. My biggest concern was about the rhyming. And that has had an interest-ing effect on the story. For example after I had introduced the character “Bridget", it was only a matter of time before I came up with the character “Little Man.” It was like I was a novelist writing about how our lives are all interconnected, which was the point of the whole drama. As people living in a community and in the world, we all impact one another. What I do to you and you do to her and she does to him and he does to someone else is an endless chain of incidents with real-life consequences. No doubt I was inspired by the “stories"—the soap operas that my mother and grandmother obsessed over every day when I was growing up.

  Everyone has a secret. Everyone has a closet that he or she is trapped inside of, and everyone—believe it or not—wants out of that closet.

  I remembered back in Miss McLin’s class at Kenwood, when she’d play an opera and tell me how I could sing and write like that. I didn’t see how. “You think you can’t, Robert,” she said, “but I know differently. I know you have this dramatic flare and the gift to tell a long story in your own style.”

  Like an opera, Trapped, my very own “hip-hopera,” is a long story where characters never stop singing. It isn’t like a musical where there’s talk, then a song, and then more talk. The story is told in wall-to-wall song. A single musical theme weaves it all together. And there’s a conclusion to each chapter, a cliff-hanger that comes at the very end to shock and tease and make you say, “What the hell is gonna happen next?”

  When I got the label to commit to filming the first five chapters of Trapped, some folk doubted me. They warned my producer, “Rob’s a vampire. He sleeps all day and works all night, and he’ll never show up at the film studio for those morning shoots. He’ll never stop recording long enough to do a film project this complicated. It’ll be a bust.”

  They were wrong. I showed up on time every day. I didn’t miss a single rehearsal or early-morning call. In fact one day I even got there before the producer did! Directing and acting in Trapped helped me feel less trapped. While filming, something else happened that surprised and thrilled me: my producer, who also produces theatrical movies, talked about Trapped being a script, and she called me the “writer.” I told her that I can “write songs” but I can’t write; hell, I can’t even spell!

  If you pulled the music out of Trapped and just listened to the words, she answered, it’s no different from any screenplay she’d ever read, except that with my work, everything rhymed.

  “You’re a writer, Robert. Believe that.”

  And for the first time, I did.

  During the filming of the first five chapters of Trapped, I began writing the next seven chapters. We released a DVD of Chapters 1-12, and it got nominated for a Grammy for Best Long-Form Video. From 2005 to 2007, we filmed a total of 22 chapters. Chapters 13-22 debuted on IFC.com, the Website for the Independent Film Channel, over a 10-day period. The Website’s traffic for that period—which normally averages around 300,000 per month—skyrocketed to 8 million in 10 days. IFC eventually played all 22 chapters strung together as a movie with no commercials. The press was crazy; everybody was loving it. Half the journalists wondered if I was a crazy genius; lots of people wondered whether I realized that it was funny. Lots of people did their own versions of Trapped. Weird Al Yankovich did one; Jimmy Kimmel did six chapters on his show, which featured Mike Tyson and Alanis Morrissette; and South Park did a Trapped episode that was actually banned in England.

  Eventually, we compiled all 22 chapters, including a “commentary remix” and a preview of Chapter 23, into one DVD called The Big Package. The songs and videos earned all sorts of awards and accolades.

  Chapter 22 remains the biggest cliff-hanger of all—it’s the chapter where I first introduce “The Package.” The package links all of the characters: One character calls another character saying, “he’s got the package” about a third character. Then all of the characters are talking simultaneously about the mysterious package. The package has literally become a point of continuing intrigue. Because the package links all the characters, it shows how rumor and innuendo can spread in a community and society. I’ve heard a lot of theories about what the package is; some ideas are crazier than the next. Want to know what it really is? I’m saving that for the next cycle of Trapped in the Closet.

  Stay tuned.

  THE BREAKUP

  The story of the end of my marriage wasn’t fiction. It was a real story a sad story Like most stories about long love affairs gone bad, it had lots of drama.

  In that way, I’m no different than millions of people struggling with their relationships. It gets good, it gets bad, it gets crazy. You want it to work because love is what brought you together. You want to regain that love, make it new, make it stronger, and hope it sees you through. You try like hell. You fail, but you get up and try again.

  If you have kids, you know how much they want mommy and daddy to stay together. Divorce scares kids, confuses them, and makes them think they’re the ones who’ve done something wrong. The last thing in the world you want is to frighten your children and mess with their security. But life can pull a man in one direction and a woman in another. No matter how much you pray to stay together, life sometimes tears you apart.

  The collapse of my marriage happened during the same seven-year period when the court case against me was building while, in reaction, my creative life was boiling.

  I knew that Drea wanted to be doing more with dance. Over time, it became difficult for her to accept that in our family, my career had always come before hers.

  I understood her frustration, but at the same time she knew the deal going into our marriage. I never hid how important it was for me to have a stay-at-home wife. I knew myself well enough to understand that nothing else would make me happy. In the beginning, Drea seemed happy with that arrangement.

  But people change. They think they want one thing and then realize they want another. That’s life, I suppose. And that’s why I started the dance studio where Drea choreographed two of my best tours. I thought that the studio would be enough.

  It wasn’t.

  As time went on, Drea’s resentment grew. I could understand that. It’s no walk in the park being married to a man who likes to sing about sex and attracts sexy women wherever he goes. I also can’t say that I was as faithful as I wanted to be or should have been. That’s another reason why Drea lost patience with me.

  Towards the end, our arguments got nasty. Drea doesn’t give ground, and I don’t either. If we were going out and I thought her hair was styled in a way that didn’t bring out her beauty, she didn’
t want to hear about it from me.

  “It’s my hair,” she snapped, “I don’t need you to tell me how to wear it.”

  “Baby,” I said, “you’re a beautiful woman, but you don’t have the right-shaped head to wear hair that high.”

  “That’s your opinion, Robert. When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”

  “Well, excuse me, Drea, but up until now, you’ve always been interested in my opinion—just like I’m interested in yours.”

  “Right now I want to be left alone.”

  So I left her alone, but the more time passed, the elephant in the room got so big until there wasn’t any room left for the two of us.

  Once I was in the whirlpool at home. When I got out, I cut my foot on a bottle that I’d left on the floor. The cut was bad, and as I walked around the house, I left a trail of blood. It looked like a massacre. I was waiting for Drea to say something, show a little concern, but she didn’t say a word. Maybe she figured I could take care of myself and get to a doctor on my own. I didn’t want that. I wanted her to take care of me. She finally broke down, cried, and took me to the doctor.

  There were moments when we took care of each other’s feelings and were still respectful. More and more, though, there were moments when she didn’t want to deal with me and I didn’t want to deal with her. We were living in the same house, but we were a million miles apart.

  “All right,” I challenged her, “if you really don’t love me, I dare you to take off your wedding ring and throw it into the pond out back.” Her wedding ring, by the way, cost $50,000.

  Drea took the dare.

  “plunk!”

  Man, I couldn’t believe it. I offered $10,000 to anyone who could fish that ring out of the pond. No one could.

  Living with me was rough. Under all the pressure, I’d gotten out of shape and gained weight. I’d gone from being R. Kelly to R. Belly. I was eating wrong and not getting enough sleep. I was irritable. Drea said I was taking my frustrations out on her. She was probably right, but I gave no ground.

  “The way you’re acting around here,” I said, “I don’t think you love me anymore.”

  She didn’t answer. She knew her silence would make me mad.

  I said it again: “I don’t think you love me, Drea.”

  Again, she said nothing.

  “All right,” I challenged her, “if you really don’t love me, I dare you to take off your wedding ring and throw it into the pond out back.” Her wedding ring, by the way, cost $50,000.

  “You don’t want to dare me,” she said.

  “The hell I don’t.”

  “You might not like what your dare will make me do.”

  “I’m still daring you,” I said.

  Drea took the dare. She marched out to the yard and threw the ring in the pond—"plunk!” Man, I couldn’t believe it. I offered $10,000 to anyone who could fish that ring out of the pond. No one could.

  The drama built. Drea started talking about divorce. In a fit of anger, I told her I’d rather throw all my money into Lake Michigan than give her one cent. She said she’d take the children and, one night, she did. She was even able to get a restraining order against me. All this happened when my serious legal problems were getting more serious every day.

  To Drea’s everlasting credit, though, she proved loyal when it really mattered. Even as we were steamrolling toward divorce, she never bad-mouthed me to the media. As a matter of fact, she did just the opposite. In a long interview with Essence magazine, Drea—the woman exiting my life at the time—vouched for me. When the writer asked about the charges against me, Drea said: “C’mon, who would believe all that? That’s why they call them allegations.”

  Being the lioness that she is, Drea said her number-one priority was keeping our kids shielded from the media madness in our lives. Although our divorce was imminent, one of Drea’s comments in the Essence article touched my heart:

  “Whatever happens to us, I will love that man to the day I die.”

  Her faith in my innocence took some of the bitterness out of our divorce, but it was still a tremendous blow. As a kid, I’d always dreamed of a happily-ever-after marriage. The destruction of that dream was heartbreaking for everyone—Drea, me, and especially the kids.

  After I knew it was over—after I knew that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again—I decided to go to the movies to get away from it all. I went by myself and saw a love story called The Notebook. I loved every minute of that film. It was about a man and a woman from different walks of life who made it through all kinds of obstacles. Their relationship was challenged, but their love conquered every one of their challenges. In the end, living in an old-age home, they died in each other’s arms. As the film credits started to roll, I couldn’t move. I burst into tears. People walking past me patted me on the back, trying to console me.

  The Notebook was beautiful, and I was crying because its hero and heroine had died together. But I was also crying because I remembered a Valentine’s Day—when a helicopter dropped a rainfall of roses—that had come and gone. My marriage had died. And there was nothing I could do to bring it back.

  STILL WAITING

  The beginning of another new year: 2007. The hearings, the depositions, the postponements. Long years gone by, and the trial still hanging over my head. Still praying, still keeping my chin up. What to do? Make more music. Redouble my efforts. I made an album called Double Up that dropped in the spring of 2007, five months after my 40th birthday

  The title track had me reunited with Snoop, and on other tracks I hooked up with Swizz Beatz, Nelly, Chamillionaire, T. I., T-Pain, Usher, Huey, Ludacris, Kid Rock, Polow da Don, and Keyshia Cole.

  There’s a story behind the first single, “I’m a Flirt Remix.” Originally I’d done the song for Bow Wow’s album, and it was supposed to be his second single. But when I got a copy of the album, the song wasn’t listed anywhere. Turns out they had made it a bonus track. I loved the song, and I didn’t want it to go to waste, so I decided to remix it and do my own version. I called in T I. and T-Pain to get on the track with me, and they blessed the record. From a bonus track on someone else’s album, “I’m a Flirt Remix” went to #1 on the Rap Chart, #2 on the Hip-Hop and R&B charts, and #12 on the Hot 200 chart.

  Double Up hit #1, and the collaborations, including “Same Girl"—my duet with Usher—were big hits. But the two songs that got lots of attention were the ones where I once again messed with the metaphors.

  “The Zoo” was my very own version of the film Jurassic Park:

  Girl, I got you so wet, it’s like a rain forest

  Like Jurassic Park except I’m your sex-a-saurus baby

  You and me hoppin’ like two kangaroos

  Rattlin’ and moanin’ out here in these woods

  The other song was “Sex Planet”:

  Jupiter, Pluto, Venus, and Saturn

  I’m leaving Earth to explore your galaxy

  Ten to zero, blast off, here we go

  We’ll be climaxing until we reach Mercury

  For reasons I can’t explain, the song became a big hit with indie rockers and made a number of their top 10 lists in 2007.

  On the street though, the song that people were talking about was “Real Talk.” It was raw, it was funny, it was real. I made my first viral video for “Real Talk,” low budget and raw and straight to the point.

  As year after year went by and the trial drew closer, my frustrations sometimes got the best of me. I prayed for calmness and acceptance, and sometimes calmness and acceptance entered my heart. Other times, though, like a caged beast, I got tired of being behind the bars of judgment. I was weary of folks assuming they knew everything about my life, assuming I just had to be guilty, and people thinking the worst of me. I was just tired of it all.

  At the same time, I was listening to up-and-coming singers copying my style—from the sound of my vocals to the type of songs I write and sing. That’,
okay. In the beginning, I bit off the styles of Charlie Wilson and Aaron Hall, just like Ray Charles bit off Nat King Cole’s style at the start of his career. Like everyone else, we need role models until we develop our own musical personalities. Everybody starts out singing what they know, what played in their houses, their neighborhoods, and on the radio. It’s just the way it is.

  I’d rather be hated for who I am than to be loved for who I’m not.

  In the beginning it was flattering. But then it became annoying when certain singers started creating press for themselves by bad-mouthing me. Suddenly they were telling me what to do. From the first day when I was starting out until this very day, I would never in a million years tell Stevie Wonder what he should do with his music. I have too much respect for the man. He came before me and paved the way for every singer that came after him. You will never hear me criticizing anything done by Stevie or Marvin Gaye or Sam Cooke or Curtis Mayfield. They taught me and inspired me.

  When the press asked for my reaction, I wouldn’t even discuss it; didn’t want to play into the hands of media-hungry up-and-comers.

  “But wait a minute, Kells,” one reporter pressed. “This young singer has given his opinion of you. Shouldn’t you respond?”

  “No,” I insisted, “because opinions should be born out of the right motive. Those opinions you’re discussing come only from people looking for publicity for themselves.”

  “That’s all you have to say?” he asked.

  “One other thing,” I added. “Elephants don’t swat flies.”

  I wasn’t looking for publicity; I was still in search of new musical galaxies. The 1996 documentary, When We Were Kings, had a powerful impact on me.