R. Kelly

1967—

Singer, songwriter, music producer

R. Kelly is a music producer and recording artist who dominated the rhythm and blues (R&B) charts during the early and mid-1990s with a series of impeccably arranged recordings that were frankly sexual in nature. He was besieged by serious image and legal troubles, however, when a videotape was sent anonymously to the Chicago Sun-Times that allegedly showed Kelly having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl. The newspaper went public with the story, and in June of 2002 Kelly was indicted on charges including child pornography. Six years after the initial charges were brought, a jury in Chicago found Kelly not guilty on all charges. Nevertheless, he faced numerous accusations and lawsuits from other young women claiming they either were unknowingly taped during intimate moments with Kelly or were underage at the time they were with him. No other criminal charges held up, however, and Kelly continued pursuing his music career throughout.

Received Classical Vocal Training

Born Robert Sylvester Kelly in Chicago in 1967, R. Kelly was raised by his mother, Joann, a single parent struggling to make a living on the city's South Side. His singing career began in a storefront church choir when he was a boy. He stayed clear of the city's growing gang scene, and along with his four siblings gained admission to the Kenwood Academy, a top-quality high school operated by the Chicago Public Schools in the Hyde Park neighborhood, which is in the shadow of the prestigious University of Chicago. The same school also produced the disco superstar Chaka Khan and rapper Da Brat. At Kenwood, Kelly received a thorough grounding in classical vocal technique from teacher Lena McLin. "She was my second mother," Kelly told Ebony. McLin recalled in Vibe magazine the broad musical studies that helped Kelly accomplish so much so quickly when he reached adulthood: "Music history, theory, piano, choir, opera workshop, jazz workshop—Robert took it all." He also accompanied her to a music educators' conference in Austria.

Kelly never finished high school and, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, he admitted years later that he could not read very well. After leaving high school, Kelly quickly directed his ambitions toward a musical career. A single afternoon spent playing and singing under Chicago's elevated railroad tracks netted him $400 and gave the young singer an indication of his ability to move a crowd. He formed an R&B group called MGM, which took home the $100,000 grand prize on a television talent search program. Kelly was discovered by Wayne Williams, an executive at Jive Records, singing at a backyard barbecue. He was placed in an all-male group, Public Announcement, and signed to the record company.

Kelly's first release with the group, the 1992 album Born into the 90s, was certified platinum for sales of over a million copies, but Kelly left the group to pursue a solo career. One year later, the multiplatinum smash 12 Play put the artist in Billboard's top ten for three months, and several of its singles topped the R&B charts. "Bump n' Grind" remained at number one on the Hot R&B chart for longer than any other R&B single of the previous thirty years. The music on 12 Play fixed Kelly's style in the public mind. He became known for self-composed and self-produced recordings such as "Sex Me," uninhibited, explicitly erotic odes with intense rhythm tracks and a distinctive tension-filled vocal style. On stage, recalled a writer for Ebony, Kelly was "the ‘Prince of Pillowtalk,’ who dropped his pants during his concerts to the delight of thousands of screaming women."

Had Controversial Relationships and Marital Troubles

No matter how explicit Kelly's lyrics became, music critics and fans always considered his arrangements and compositions varied and full of interesting musical detail—possibly as a result of his classical training. Kelly produced his own recordings, and other artists sought him out as a producer and songwriter, intrigued by the palette of sounds he seemed to have at his command. Kelly worked with Whitney Houston, Quincy Jones, Toni Braxton, Gladys Knight, and, most famously, Michael Jackson, as composer of the number-one hit "You Are Not Alone," which was released on Jackson's HIStory: Past, Present, and Future, Book I album in 1995.

Another creative collaboration made headlines in the nation's music press when rumors began spreading that Kelly had married the fifteen-year-old vocalist Aaliyah while producing her debut album, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number. Even though Kelly maintained the relationship was nothing more than platonic, reports of the relationship circulated widely. In reality, the twenty-seven-year-old Kelly had married Aaliyah in a hotel-room ceremony in Chicago on August 31, 1994. To get a marriage license, Aaliyah had claimed to be eighteen. When her family learned of the marriage, they intervened, and an annulment was granted in Detroit in October of 1994.

In 1996 Kelly married Andrea Lee, one of the dancers in his live shows. The couple had three children together, but most sources claim the marriage was rocky from the start. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Lee's family distrusted and felt alienated by him, saying they were not allowed to visit or speak to Lee on the telephone. For her part, Lee admitted Kelly had some control issues, and in 2005 a judge granted her request for an emergency protection order after she claimed Kelly physically abused her when she told him she wanted a divorce. A few weeks later Lee dropped the protection order, saying she and Kelly were trying to reconcile, albeit living separately. In Essence in 2007, she again said they were in the process of divorcing.

At a Glance …

Born Robert Sylvester Kelly on January 8, 1967, in Chicago, IL; son of Joann (a schoolteacher); married Aaliyah (a singer), 1994 (annulled); married Andrea Lee (a dancer), 1996; children: Joanne, Jaya, and one son.

Career: MGM (R&B group), founder, late 1980s; recording and performing artist, 1989—; music producer, 1990—; Atlantic City Seagulls, player, 1997.

Awards: Grammy Awards, Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, Best Song Written for a Motion Picture or for Television, and Best R&B Song, all for "I Believe I Can Fly," 1997; Soul Train Music Awards, Sammy Davis Jr., Entertainer of the Year Award, 1999; Billboard Music Awards, R&B/Hip-Hop Artist of the Year, 1999; American Music Awards, Male Soul/R&B Artist, 2000; Vibe Awards, R&B Vanguard Award, 2003; Billboard Music Awards, R&B Producer of the Year and R&B Songwriter of the Year, 2004.

Addresses: Office—Barry Hankerson, Midwest Management, 15250 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA 91403.

Produced Own Recordings; Moved toward Gospel

Meanwhile, Kelly's music began to move in a new stylistic direction. Like many other African-American musicians, Kelly had made no secret of the fact that he drew heavily on the gospel music that he had sung as a youth. He stated in Ebony, "Take away the sexy bump and grind, and you can easily put in gospel lyrics." Following his mother's death from cancer in 1993, Kelly began making music that connected with gospel more directly. His third album, R. Kelly, included several gospel tunes, and he broke through to a wider pop audience than he had ever previously reached with his huge 1996 hit "I Believe I Can Fly," from the soundtrack of the film Space Jam. Although not strictly a religious song, "I Believe I Can Fly" bowed toward gospel in its quotation of the turn-of-the-century revival hymn "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" and in the swelling choral lines that generated its climax. The song deftly fused gospel with inspirational language, and soon became a fixture of high-school choir presentations all over the country. Kelly won three Grammy Awards for the single in 1997.

Making a guest appearance at a 1997 concert by the gospel phenomenon Kirk Franklin, according to a report in Ebony, Kelly proclaimed: "I used to be flying in sin—now I'm flying in Jesus." He told Franklin, "You know I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I really want to get some things in my life right with the Lord," and it became clear that Kelly was considering performing gospel music himself. If he made the switch, he would follow in the footsteps of some illustrious predecessors—Al Green and Little Richard being the best known. The influential R&B critic Nelson George, quoted in Ebony, pointed out that Kelly had several options open: "He could do gospel and R&B, or he could simply write love songs with less explicit language…. It will all depend on whether he plans to sing true gospel, R&B, or that funny thing in the middle."

Not long after making his religious announcement, Kelly fulfilled another one of his dreams: playing professional basketball. Though it was not with the world-renowned National Basketball Association, he played a full eight-week season in the summer of 1997 for the Atlantic City Seagulls of the United States Basketball League. Soon, Kelly returned to his musical career, releasing his fourth album, R., in 1998. The album featured several spiritual songs, including a duet with the Canadian singer Celine Dion. Kelly blended his former song styles with his religious leanings in his next album TP-2.Com, released in 2000, which featured both spiritual and more explicitly sexual songs.

Charged with Improprieties

Kelly's public image was marred by several allegations of sexual relations with minors, along with numerous incidents of erratic and violent behavior. He settled with four women who filed suits against him in 1996, 2001, and 2002, but he was charged with twenty-one counts of possessing child pornography in 2002. Kelly was charged with, among other things, enticing an underage girl into performing illicit acts and directing and producing a videotape of the acts. The tape was sent anonymously to the Chicago Sun-Times on the day Kelly performed at the Winter Olympics wrapped in an American flag. Kelly was released on $750,000 bond. In 2003 Kelly was arrested in Florida on twelve counts of possessing child pornography. He was released on a $12,000 bond. The case was dropped, though, when a judge ruled that police did not have enough evidence to search Kelly's property.

The Chicago case dragged on for six years before finally going to trial in May of 2008, with fourteen felony counts against him—seven had been dropped since the initial charges were brought. Legal analysts were stumped as to why the process had taken so long. The judge ruled that the jurors would watch the entire video in question, which authorities said showed a grown man performing sexual acts with a girl as young as thirteen. In the end the jury of nine men and three women took less than a day to find Kelly not guilty.

Despite his troubles with the law, Kelly's music continued to resonate with fans. His albums TP-2.Com and Chocolate Factory, released in 2003, both reached the top of the Billboard chart. In 2001 Kelly won several top R&B music awards, including the Source R&B Artist of the Year and the Billboard Top R&B Artist of the Year, and in 2003 he won the Black Entertainment Award for Best Male R&B Artist and several awards at the Billboard Music Awards. In 2006 and 2008 Kelly was nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Long Form Music Video for his "urban opera" Trapped in the Closet, a series of "chapters" with a continuing storyline that were released from 2004 to 2007.

Selected discography

(With Public Announcement) Born into the 90s, Jive, 1992.

12 Play, Jive, 1993.

R. Kelly, Jive, 1995.

(With other artists) Space Jam (soundtrack; contains "I Believe I Can Fly"), Jive/Atlantic/Warner Bros., 1996.

R., Jive, 1998.

TP-2.Com, Jive, 2000.

(With Jay-Z) The Best of Both Worlds, Universal, 2002.

Chocolate Factory, Jive, 2003.

Unfinished Business, Jive, 2004.

Happy People/U Saved Me, Jive/Zomba, 2004.

TP.3 Reloaded, Jive, 2005.

Double Up, Jive/Zomba, 2007.

12 Play: 4th Quarter, Jive, 2008.

Sources

Periodicals

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 15, 2003.

Chicago Sun-Times, May 8, 2008.

Chicago Tribune, January 26, 1998; June 13, 2008.

Ebony, July 1996, p. 127; June 1997, p. 104.

Essence, February 1996, p. 58; May 3, 2007.

Jet, August 26, 1996, p. 34; March 24, 1997, p. 54; June 8, 1998, p. 54; May 27, 2002, p. 56.

Newsweek, April 14, 2003, p. 54.

People, May 30, 1994, p. 95.

Vibe, August 1997, p. 48.

Online

R. Kelly Official Web site, http://www.r-kelly.com (accessed November 3, 2008).

Vineyard, Jennifer, "R. Kelly's Wife Says He Isn't in Alleged Sex Tape—Though She Hasn't Seen It," MTV News, http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1558650/20070503/kelly_r.jhtml (accessed November 3, 2008).

—James M. Manheim, Sara Pendergast, and Nancy Dziedzic