R. Kelly

Jet, Dec 28, 1998

Reveals

* Why Success Saddens Him

* His Struggle To Get To Heaven And

* Why He's In Love With The Future

R. Kelly has the magic touch musically. Every song that he wraps his soul-stirring vocals around has his signature written all over it. He makes music scream his name. It's no wonder that his newly-released album, his first in three years, is simply titled R.

Shipped in at triple platinum, already the double album is cranking out a range of tunes that continue to complement Kelly's global appeal as a recording artist and songwriter. From the sensuous slow song Half On A Baby, to the hip hop party groove Home Alone featuring rapper Keith Murray, to the tender ballad I'm Your Angel, a duet with pop superstar Celine Dion, Kelly keeps the hits pumping.

During a recent interview with the reigning King of R&B, Kelly told JET why success saddens him, why he is struggling to get to Heaven and why he's in love with the future.

With three multi-platinum albums, numerous awards and a string of top-selling records to his name, Kelly is a man who has it all in the eyes of his millions of fans.

Kelly, on the other hand, would probably be the first to tell you different. In spite of his fame and fortune, the famed musician admits that he is saddened by it all at times.

"With everything that I do, I feel sad," Kelly says, explaining how he's still dealing with thoughts of his beloved mother, Joann Kelly, who passed away in 1993. "Every day that goes by and another record is sold, I feel sad because I can't call my mother. I loved my mother. I was in love with my mother."

Reared in the church, Kelly says that he's been religious all of his life. He also acknowledges that he has fallen short of the glory. It was just recently when he decided to give his life to the Lord. "Now, I just have a better vision," he points out, "a better way of going about being religious."

Still professing to be a man in motion spiritually, he contends that it isn't easy trying to change his life for the better.

"I'm just struggling to get to Heaven. That's what I say," Kelly states very firmly. "People look at celebrities like they're not human sometimes. I'm just like the next man. I'm just trying to live right. I'm just trying to do the right thing.

"I'm not perfect. I see women every day and they are fine. I am like, `Wow.' I'm human. I'm a man. I grew up that way. The same with women. They see men. They like them and they go after them or they will look. Just as women may do me, I do them the same way and I embrace the love that they have for me. I embrace it."

Embracing the love of his female fans, he adds, doesn't mean that he's hanging out with "a whole lot of women" like he has done in the past. "At first that's going to be a bit exciting, a bit out of control. But if you live long enough, God will bless you long enough to realize that it ain't just about that. It's about maintaining your success because if you keep going that route, you're going to drain yourself."

Looking ahead to the future is what Kelly lives for. He follows advice his mother gave to him years ago.

"My mother taught me to fall in love with the future because that way you'll get to the future," he recalls. "She told me not to fall in love with the present because you'll stay in the present or stay in the past. I look to the future every day."

When Kelly stepped onto the music scene in 1993 as a solo artist, he won a huge following with the album 12 Play, which churned out the steamy slow tunes Sex Me, Bump & Grind and Your Body's Callin'. Two years later he had the ladies begging for more with his second solo album, R. Kelly. The project spawned the songs You Remind Me Of Something, Down Low and I Can't Sleep Baby.

This year after garnering crossover success with the spiritual tune I Believe I Can Fly, which won him three Grammy Awards, Kelly's musical out soared.

Throughout the span of his acclaimed career, Kelly also has become recognized for his ability to pen gospel hits like Trade In My Life. More recently he performed with his friend-spiritual mentor, gospel superstar Kirk Franklin, on Franklin's tune Lean On Me. Kelly also wrote and produced the gospel song God's Grace for the group Trin-i-tee 5:7.

Some have criticized the 30-year-old Chicago native for singing about hot-buttered sex one minute and praising the Lord the next. He sees nothing wrong with using the gift of song to reach everyone.

"People will put down and say what they want. It makes me no difference because people are not my God," Kelly maintains. "I don't worry about what people say. That's the point of having a God and knowing who God is, so that you don't have to worry. You give it to God. I believe in myself and in what God has done for me."

Kelly says he had a lot to get off his chest from the past three years. Since making music is one of his best avenues for exhaling, he figured a 29track, double album a viable vehicle for him to do such a thing.

"I've been through a lot since my first album. I know I had a lot to say," he explains. "In the growing of your success, the more you grow. The more you go through," he explains. "The more you have to write about. It's a big wind. It's like a hurricane sometimes. The more it twists, the more it grows. The more it tears up, the more it spreads. That's pretty much what we're dealing with."