Such a great interview: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/r-kelly
Do you think R. Kelly is really as sort of naively artful as he comes across? How aware is he? I sometimes imagine him as the ultimate insider/outsider artist: still tryin’ to keep up, banging out the hits - but then stumbling onto these huge concepts nobody else in his position would even consider. I’m glad Will Oldham asked him about “3-Way Phone Call” - what kind of song IS that? How else would that song have happened?
Is he just a host body merely channelling this music in a constant stream from some higher power? Should he be writing novels or plays or movie scripts or new age spiritual propaganda? Does Trapped in the Closet prove he’s too strange for all that? Keeping it pop song length prevents him from channelling too much of “the weird”?
I met Kells at a Mall outside of Chicago, got his autograph and told him I loved “Step in the Name of Love.” He didn’t even really look up, but it was cool. I keep his autograph above my computer in a plastic baseball card case to try and feed off the channel.
BUT WHAT IS UP with those fake horn sounds, R.?! Like on “When a Woman Loves”? I want to say that it’s on purpose, and an aesthetic choice, blah blah blah - but my god, it just can’t be. That’s what I’m talking about, does he just not realize? …Aw, he don’t mind, he likes it, ain’t no thing - “there’s too many songs to be made I can’t waste it on bringing some “jazzy” brass bros in here”! Real talk.
Dear Mr. Kelly,
If ever you need a new bus driver-esque studio engineer, please call.
With love and apathy,
-Matt
