When Chicago R&B artist R. Kelly went public with his newfound faith in Jesus, longtime fans and music moguls alike wondered how the change of heart would affect his music. This was, after all, the same performer who built a million-selling reputation with raunchy anthems such as “Bump ‘N Grind,” “Sex Me” and “Your Body’s Callin’.”
His next single, “I Believe I Can Fly,” the theme Kelly wrote for “Space Jam” at Michael Jordan’s request, offered a clue. The lyric spoke of soaring that went beyond the most spectacular slam dunk: “I believe I can fly/ I believe I can touch the sky/ I think about it every night and day/ Spread my wings and fly away.”
“I would hope the world would look at it as not just another song,” Kelly said last week at Chicago Trax studios. “It was written at a time when I was going through a lot in my life. I feel like God pretty much wrote that song.”
On the strength of that No. 1 track alone, Kelly is up for five Grammys this year, more nominations than he had earned in his entire career (he garnered two in 1995). And now, as the Feb. 25 awards show nears, Kelly is putting the finishing touches on “Kelly V.I.P.,” a new album he promises will reflect his budding maturity as a man and musician.
The big question on the minds of Kelly’s fans is whether his fourth album will be a gospel record — perhaps in the style of the powerful, soul-searching track (“Trade In My Life”) that closed his last album. The answer to that question is no, though Kelly said he is moving in a direction consistent with higher love.
“People can expect R. Kelly, but to another level,” Kelly said. “There’ll be a few dance tracks, love ballads. The different thing about this album is you’re going to hear a lot of real-life relationship situations.”
Kelly said he hopes the album, cut in Chicago and New York, will come out in two months. A sampling of one track, called “Etc.,” reveals that Kelly has shed some of his more graphic lyrics for those that leave more to the imagination. It is a tender ballad, subtle and sensual, crowned with a soulful vocal hook: “Tonight we’ll make sweet love/ And feel the rain falling down/ On you and me and all these things/ And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”
Kelly described some other tracks slated for “Kelly V.I.P.,” which include:
– “Half On a Baby.” “It’s a guy asking his woman, `Let’s go half on a baby.’ They’re sitting around, they’re bored, and instead of going half on a pizza, he asks her to go half on a baby.”
– “Home Alone.” “It’s a party track about parents out of town, they’ve got the party going on in the hills, celebration. Break out the old tapes and let’s party.”
– “Turn Back the Hands of Time.” “We all make mistakes in life and we wish we could turn back the hands of time and fix a few things. Some people want to turn back the hands of time just for memory’s sake.
– “One Man.” “I feel like I wrote this song from the inside of a woman. I’ve had a lot of relationships with women where I had a girlfriend and hurt her so bad. I was just a dog, you know, and I wanted to apologize to those particular women, and any other woman who has been treated that way.”
The upcoming disc marks the latest step in a journey Kelly revealed to the world last March, when he made a guest appearance during a Kirk Franklin gospel concert at UIC Pavilion. Only a year before, Kelly had dropped his pants on that same stage after a night of salacious crooning and simulated lovemaking. But for Franklin’s show, Kelly dressed in a conservative gray suit and proclaimed in a trembling voice: “I used to be flying in sin — now I’m flying in Jesus.”
Since Franklin’s show, Kelly has had little or nothing to say in public about what motivated his conversion to Christianity, or how it might alter his musical future. There was also the question of how Kelly would reconcile his unfolding faith with his racy past.
Kelly, who sang in a Baptist choir while growing up in public housing on the South Side, said on Thursday that his conversion did not come in an instant, but had been building over time. One key event that forced Kelly to reconsider everything was his mother’s death in 1993.
“Losing my mom not only saddened me and took me through a lot of trauma,” he said, “but it has made me grow. It didn’t kill me, so it must have made me stronger, to the point where I know how to deal with everyday life situations.”
Kelly met Franklin in December 1994, and it was under his guidance that Kelly began to find the spiritual nurturing he craved. To the outside world, Robert Kelly was the man with the platinum albums and all the trappings of fame. Inside, he was struggling with brokenness.
“It’s sort of like a drunk; he gets a lot of money and he can have any piece of booze, any drink — anything he wants to drink, he can have it,” Kelly said. “Not only can he have it, it’s coming at him from every angle and he’s got a lot of friends around that do the same thing. That’s pretty much how it was for me: a lot of partying, a lot of women everywhere.”
The excesses of success led Kelly to an inevitable conclusion. “I feel like too much of anything can kill you. And that’s where I was. I was at a turning point where you get in this business, and you get successful, and there comes a point in time where you’ve got to grow up some.”
As he toured the globe, Kelly said, he was awakened by exposure to the cultures and lifestyles of other lands. “I got to see the world from other angles, and when you see other angles, you have other thoughts. You have other ideas. And I saw all these choices and decisions. I came to a point in time where I said, `Man, maybe I need to slow down a little bit.’
“I love parties, don’t get me wrong. I love celebrating. I love kicking it. My album’s no gospel album. But I had to take a step toward God because that’s where I come from — that’s where we all come from.”
As a public Christian with a sex-drenched past, Kelly realizes that many eyes will be on him in the months, even years, ahead. He is questioning much of his back catalog, and what he will do with it in future concerts remains uncertain. “As I grow, I’m sure I will (reconsider it) even more,” he said. “But I’m the type of guy that with something I don’t know about, I like to take it little by little, a step at a time. I don’t want to get in too far and too deep and then end up over my head.”
His first word of caution is that like any other man, he remains far from perfect. “I’m just trying to do right, you know? People will say, `R. Kelly’s supposed to be saved, and he’s doing love songs and doing love ballads.’ A lot of people think that just because you give your life to the Lord, you have to come out with a gospel album. That is not how it goes.”
But Kelly also said he wouldn’t rule out a gospel record, adding that he will listen to God for guidance — and also to his mother.
“I can remember everything my mother has told me, sort of like Mr. Miyagi and Daniel San (in the “Karate Kid” movies). Daniel San was away from Mr. Miyagi, but he could always hear the voice of Mr. Miyagi telling him what moves to make and what blows to strike.”
In the meantime, even as the Grammy voters have given him some recognition, Kelly seems eager to put things in perspective. Nothing, he said, could match the goosebumps he felt hearing schoolchildren sing “I Believe I Can Fly” at graduations and in church.
What’s more, he said, the credit for his achievements belongs elsewhere.
“I’m not afraid to say that God gave me my talent, I’m not afraid to say that God woke me up this morning, I’m not afraid to say that God kept me all of my days or allowed me to write a song like `I Believe I Can Fly,’ ” he said. “I know that God is the head of my life. At first I didn’t, but now I do. As everybody says, `First I was blind, but now I see.’ “
