Call him Legion, for he is many. And call him the rightful heir to Prince’s place on the pop charts, because he’s that too. Pretenders to Prince’s throne have made better music, or at least better-respected music, than R. Kelly, but none has projected anything like His Purple Majesty’s multilayered fruitcake of a persona, which is as much a part of his appeal as his skills. On that count, Kells may even have Prince beat.
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Kelly codified his multifarious approach to the album format with TP-2.com in 2000. Already established as a post-New Jack Swing leading man, he introduced a new role–basically, the rapper who doesn’t rap. Dripping with diamonds and fur, pouring champagne, this new R. Kelly was more likely to duet with Fat Joe than Celine Dion. TP-2.com was his first album to drop after MP3s and file sharing became widespread, so fans could cherry-pick tracks from the persona they preferred.
If the past seven years of Kelly’s career have been like one long test-marketing campaign, then Double Up (Jive), which came out last week, is the focus-grouped result. Though he’s cooled it with the experimentation–there’s nothing here as wild as, say, the bhangra-flavored 2003 cut “Thoia Thoing”–he’s developed a masterful command of his strongest sounds, the ones rooted in hip-hop, soul, pop, and R & B.
Kelly obviously relishes his role as a marketer. With his eagerness to put on different personas to sell the most music to the most people, he sorta reminds me of one of those car salesmen who’ll mimic your accent and body language when they’re trying to talk you into an upgrade. And the commercial side of his work seems to genuinely inspire him: for all its shamelessness, “Ringtone” is one of Double Up’s most exciting tracks, pressing sparse, Neptunes-esque drums against a Houston-style screwed vocal sample and an unexpected gospel choir. Ironically, it’s too minimalist and bass heavy to work well as an actual ringtone–I’ll probably end up downloading one of the album’s other tracks for my phone. R. Kelly songs may be first and foremost advertisements for R. Kelly, but being marketed to almost never sounds this good.
