“Let me remind you that I am the king of R&B.” So singeth R. Kelly, near the end of his thumping, piano-driven hit, “I’m a Flirt (Remix),” which just might be the most pleasurable song on the radio. It’s an unnecessary boast: Who could possibly argue, or forget?
Five years ago, a sex scandal threatened to dethrone him, but in the end it merely gave him more of what every star needs: attention and motivation. He still faces 14 counts of child pornography in an upcoming trial . But you’d never guess it from “Double Up,” which might be the most cocksure album of R. Kelly’s career. Bragging and cursing and reeling off rapid-fire lyrics, Kelly acts as if he’s the king of hip-hop. Rapper collaborators (including Snoop Dogg, Nelly, Chamillionaire and T.I.) inevitably get upstaged by a charismatic host who barely even bothers to make his sung-rhymes rhyme. With its dirty-South beat and big-money lyrics, “Rollin'” could have been a rote club track; instead the playful and unpredictable vocal line makes it a minor tour de force.
Most of the best songs on “Double Up” are convoluted narratives: “Same Girl,” with Usher, is a silly but elegant duet about two guys making an unhappy discovery (“Man, we been messing with the same girl”); “Best Friend,” with Keyshia Cole and Polow Da Don, finds our hero in jail, trying to figure out if his girlfriend is helping him or two-timing him (or both).
This is a nutty album, but a pretty single-minded one, which explains why the inspirational ode “Rise Up” (dedicated to victims of the Virginia Tech shootings) sounds so incongruous. Forget the high road: The true heart of “Double Up” is “Leave Your Name,” a smoothed-out voice mail message explaining that Kelly can’t come to the phone because he’s still drunk from the night before. He’ll sober up soon enough, but for now he’s on a singularly entertaining bender.
