R. Kelly flies: and talks about women, money, power and religion

Ebony, Sept, 1998 by Kevin Chappell

He doesn't know how it happened or when it happened. But sometime between living at the YMCA and moving into his multimillion-dollar Chicago sometime between selling pantyhose on street comers and stinting his own record label; sometime between singing for loose change in grungy underground subway stations and taking flight in front of millions of adoring fans; sometime between the sex and the morning-afters, the raunch and the religion, R. Kelly realized that there was "something bigger and better out there. But, for tile most part, all I was doing was feeding my body, doing what made me feel good."

It wasn't supposed to be like that. Money, power and fame --everything he worked so hard to attain--were supposed to erase the stains on his soul, blur the mirror to his conscience, his transgressions. It had for so many other artists. But for Kelly, who believes "the depth of my struggle will determine the height of my success," his inner antagonists have never allowed him to be what he calls a "famous and dinky and happy-go-lucky" entertainer.

In tact, since Robert Kelly, the poor kid from the Chicago projects, became R. Kelly, the King of R&B, "almost every night is a low point in my life," Kelly confides as he sits in a Chicago recording studio at 2 a.m., flanked by his homies and the newest member of his entourage--his minister. "And every night will continue to be a low point until I reach a certain point where I learn how to take control of my life and not do certain things anymore."

In a society where, Kelly says, "you're only as good as your last," he admits that it would be easy for him to believe that he can do no wrong, easy to let the positive vibes drown out tile negative ones. After all, with five Grammy nominations earlier this year, including one for Song of the Year, tile 30-year-old entertainer is one of the biggest artists of the '90s. He has back-to-back-to-back multiplatinum albums to his credit, and a newly released album that's sure to be a hit. His sense of music theory and marketability been called "masterful" and the reason why he has become one of the hottest songwriters of the decade with triumphant movie scores and blockbuster songs written for superstars like Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Gladys Knight.

At the end of the day, who wouldn't believe the hype, Kelly says. "It's hard when you're successful to concentrate on anything else but the success tile women, the parties, the clubs, people buying your album, girls screaming your name, and guys going `woof, woof, woof' before you come out on the stage to perform," he says. "It feels good. I'm not going to lie. Sometimes it feels too good to know you got people depending on you to come out with a song that's going to make them want to make love, have a party or get up on the floor when it's time to dance. You start to feel like that's your responsibility."

But instead of tromping him with confidence, Kelly calls his success "a scary feeling" that has given him second thoughts about his purpose in life and: the propose of his music.

Since the beginning, controversy has surrounded his unique brand of sexually explicit music. Songs like "Sex Me" and "Bump 'N' Grind" were gobbled up by millions of hormone-driven teenagers, but criticized by some parents, anti even banned in Korea and Singapore.

While it would have been easy to continue to churn out the money-making sex songs, Kelly says on his new CD, Rated R, he has attempted to take his music to another level. In fact, he says the idea of maturing musically has consumed him, transforming him into what he calls a "wild man," running from one Chicago recording studio to another, back in finch, all night. "Like I ain't never had a bite to eat, like I ain't never had a dollar in my pocket ... working my butt off, but never knowing I'm tired," he says. "There have been times when I have been up three or four days straight working on this music. But didn't know it, didn't want to know it, didn't care."

Music insiders like Griff Morris, executive director of the Chicago chapter of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, say Kelly's work ethic "has become legendary. Almost everyone in the business knows about his all-night recording sessions. His commitment to music is awesome." But Kelly's commitment to his personal growth proclaimed at a concert by hip-hop gospel artist Kirk Franklin that he "used to be flying in sin--now I'm flying in Jesus." With those trembling words, Kelly had the music world and the world wondering if he was ready to trade his multimillion-dollar sex talk for talk of salvation, his seductive fast life for a more spiritual existence, maybe as a gospel singer or a minister.

Until then, the talk about his personal life had only dealt with his many boondoggles, like run-ins (disturbing the peace, scuffles at clubs, etc.) with the law, wild parties, rumors in 1944 about his possible marriage to then-16-year-old singer Aaliyah, and even recent talk that he is possibly married to--and has fathered a child with--someone else (a subject he refuses to discuss).