The Transcendent Absurdity of R. Kelly

One unforgettable night in Oakland.

I went to a lot of memorable concerts in 2012, but one stands out so clearly I’m sure I’ll be telling my grandchildren about it as I force them to watch Trapped in The Closet for the 500th time. This show was so indelibly burned into my gray matter that months later I can still put myself back in that moment, and if you’ll allow me, baby, I will take you there.

As the curtain dropped and R Kelly descended down a white staircase onto the stage of the Paramount Theater on a rainy Halloween night in Oakland, the nervous anticipation of a packed house turned into full-bore exhilaration with the first hair-raising note. The moment was the culmination of years of proselytizing for Kellz, defending his shortcomings and continually marveling at the scope of his talent. Still, there was always the chance for a letdown; even tongue-in-cheek hero worship carries that kind of risk. After all, his mastery of production might not translate to the stage, and a recent throat surgery might rob him of his greatest asset. Turns out that if anything I’d underestimated R’s abilities, for his voice was mesmerizing.

Kelly strode around the stage for two hours, playing something like 40 of his hits, medley-style, in a white suit, backed by a band decked in all white and flanked by a pair of bartenders on stage, who were shockingly also decked out in white. The effect was somewhat romantic, semi-religious, but ultimately sparse, so as not to distract from R’s angelic pipes. As famously parodied by Aziz Ansari and Dave Chappelle, he even sang the ad-libbed interludes between songs, only taking a break from vocalizing his desires to get himself a drink or catch a pair of panties, tuck them in his pocket and continue seducing every woman in the building.

This tour, dubbed the Single Ladies tour, isn’t a reference to the Beyonce song. It’s an attempt to bring the women out, because as R adeptly puts it: “Where there are single ladies, men will go.” Real talk. And the crowd did seem to be mostly made up of women, R’s core constituency and most ardent backers. Every new song never failed to induce screaming, and judging by her shrieking, I’m pretty sure the woman next to me had multiple orgasms.

His range was incredible—he sang early hits, he sang Opera in Italian, he sang a cappella, he never strained or missed a cue, and the two perfectly paced hours he spent onstage flew by, with the crowd remaining on their feet the entire time. Even with its technical precision, the show didn’t seem scripted—and if reports from the next nights show are evidence, each show features a new set list and different props.

That’s what R Kelly has proven over the last 20 years: He knows how to entertain. He may not know much else, but he’s a singing savant, and the perception he might go off the rails at any given moment doesn't hurt his allure much either. If R. Kelly and all his trappings seem absurd, it’s because they are. His career is a miracle Hollywood couldn’t script.

The Single Ladies Tour: Columbus Show Review

Five quick thoughts on R. Kelly's show Sunday at Franklin County Veterans Memorial:

(1) The target demo for this show was significantly older, blacker and better dressed than me. I realized very quickly how isolated I am in my little white niche, and that I need to consider trading in my grimy blue hoodie for a necktie next time.

(2) I was amazed at how many songs he managed to squeeze in under two hours. He was able to do this mostly because a good chunk of the songs were reduced to a single verse or even a few lines of a cappella. Or in the case of "Real Talk," many lines of a cappella. Not long into the show, mega-hits "Fiesta," "I'm a Flirt (Remix)" and "Ignition (Remix)" were rattled off nonchalantly in quick succession, never to be heard from again, Kellz seemingly impervious to the tradition of saving your best for last. The rapid-fire approach allowed for a corny bit about 30 minutes into the show in which Kelly pretended to be done with his setlist, only to pull a sheet of "scrap paper" out of his back pocket with 62 more songs on it. This was the Guided By Voices concert of R&B concerts. Which brings me to another thing I learned quickly: My knowledge of R. Kelly's catalog is extremely cursory. I genuinely love the man's music, but I've experienced it mostly through YouTube and mix CDs, not long hours buried deep in his two-decade discography. So when he let us know that "Real R. Kelly fans know real R. Kelly music," I was slightly ashamed.

(3) R. Kelly is known for being, to put it kindly, a bit eccentric. Sunday's show was as weird as you'd want it to be and no more. This was not two hours of "Trapped In the Closet"-level strangeness, though there were moments of bizarre performance art, about which more in a moment. The setup was all white everything: Kellz began singing behind a white curtain, which soon revealed a white staircase flanked by a band and backup singers in white, plus two white "Singles Bars" staffed by bartenders in white tuxedos. This was billed as the Single Ladies tour, which seems like kind of a blatant Beyonce ripoff, but whatevs — it's not, like, an inappropriate name for an R. Kelly tour or something — thus, a few single ladies from the crowd were soon invited to sit at the bars. Kellz was decked out in all white too, including a jacket that read "SINGLE" down his left sleeve in flashing lights and "V. I. ME" on the back, also in flashing lights. He asked someone in the front row to wipe the sweat off his face with a towel. At one point, white-clad roadies brought out a throne for Kellz, which he sat in for about 30 seconds before standing up again and sending it away. This was all mildly goofy, but about two-thirds through the show things took a turn for the WTF. The lights went down, and the roadies pulled a cage on stage. Lights back up, and there's Kelly pulling a woman (an actress?) out of the audience. He led her into the cage and chained her arms up, then the cage was covered with a white sheet, the lights went back down, the cage started shaking and we saw a silhouette of Kelly having (probably?!) fake sex with her. Lights back up, sheet off the cage, and both parties were buttoning their pants. Apparently this was not as much of a turnoff as I imagined because during the "When A Woman Loves"/"Step In the Name of Love" encore, loads of women from the crowd climbed on stage and swarmed around Kelly until I couldn't see him anymore.

(4) Aside from that sort of insanity, let's not forget what put R. Kelly on the map in the first place: The man can sing! His flourishes at the end of "I Wish" showed an instrument that hasn't lost its power with time. When he belted out "I Believe I Can Fly" to close the main set, it could have been the original 1996 studio track, except it felt vibrant and alive and right-here-right-now. He also sang opera(!), and while I know nothing about the finer points of classically trained vocals, it sounded superb.

(5) Opener Tamia was not nearly as cray, but pleasant enough. Did you know she has been married to Grant Hill for 13 years, and she had a hit duet with Fabolous in 2003, and her M.S. symptoms are in remission? Fun facts!

Machine Gun Kelly: R. Kelly took aim at music and hit several targets

R. Kelly says he can't even begin to address all the things that have been written that are wrong about him."I can't answer that because there's too many things," says Kelly. "The way my career is going right now you're always going to have negativity. You're going to always have people misunderstand you, because they just don't know you. Even though I forgive them as they come in the door."

Kelly (the "R" is for Robert) has been one of the most successful R&B singers of the past 20 years. With hits including "I Believe I Can Fly," "Ignition," "Step In the Name of Love" and "I'm Your Angel," Kelly has topped pop and R&B charts around the world.

Raised in Chicago, Kelly grew up listening to classic R&B vocalists and trying to sing like them.

"Donny Hathaway, Stevie Wonder, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, even Jeffery Osbourne, those guys are guys I studied," says Kelly. "The guys I listened to. I liked their riffs. I liked their tones. As I got older I started mixing and blending it into my tone and my voice, so I started developing my own style."

He says by the time he was 15 or 16 he was certain making music was his future. He signed with Jive Records and released his first album, "Born in the 90's" in 1992.

"I just knew I had a voice. I heard music and I wanted to get it out of me," he says.
He says he pitched pop ballads, but the compnay wanted him to sound like the R&B that was popular at the time.

Magic Man: The Smooth, Sexy, and Unsinkable Mr. R. Kelly

Is there any contemporary musician whose life has reached the highest highs and the lowest lows the way R. Kelly’s has?

From a two-decade-long string of hits—including the number-one inspirational single “I Believe I Can Fly” and one of the best dance jams of all time, “Ignition (Remix)”—to his 2008 trial over allegedly making a videotape that showed him having sex with (and pissing on) a supposedly underage girl, Robert Sylvester Kelly has had a career of which both dreams and nightmares are made.

Lately, though, it’s been mostly dreams—after a long couple of years of nightmares. Kelly was found not guilty of all the charges against him, but the fallout from the trial, which was almost seven years in the making, destroyed his marriage. And then in 2011, Kelly had emergency throat surgery.

“I was scared as hell. I didn’t know what was going on,” Kelly says on the phone from his tour bus. “I didn’t know if I was going to have to start singing softer or what. But thank God that’s not the case.”

Once he recovered, Kelly turned 2012 into a banner year. He produced the soundtrack for Whitney Houston’s final motion picture, Sparkle, which came out this past August. Kelly also released a memoir, Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me, along with his 11th studio album, Write Me Back. Then, last week, the Independent Film Channel premiered the next installment of Trapped in the Closet, Kelly’s “hip-hopera”—the first new chapters since 2007.

The Single Ladies Tour: Milwaukee Show Review

JSOnline: R. Kelly tantalizes crowd with musical foreplay

So often in music the name of a tour has little to nothing to do with the tour itself. But leave it to R. Kelly, the most dedicated man in R&B (his "Trapped in the Closet" hip-hopera, 22 chapters and counting, will never end) to really commit when it comes to a concept.

For his latest venture on the road - dubbed the "Single Ladies Tour" - R. Kelly transformed the Milwaukee Theatre on Saturday into a wild party for his shrieking, dancing female fans and some of the dressed-to-impress fellas scattered throughout the approximately two-thirds-full theater.

The stark white stage was pretty much the only pristine thing about Saturday's unapologetically raunchy show. In hindsight, the presence of two bars on either side of the stage (complete with bartenders and female patrons plucked from the crowd), and the sight of Kelly's unfastened, blinged-out belt buckle at the start of the set, were but foreshadowing for how loose things were going to get.

Oh, and they got plenty loose.

As Kelly purred the words "feel me" from "12 Play," one of probably dozens of "baby-making" ballads he performed in part on Saturday, a few women standing at his feet reached out with their hands and helped themselves to some crotch-rubbing.

Then later, a woman was brought on stage who, after signing a waiver, was fastened inside a metal cage. The 45-year-old Kelly stepped inside, a sheet was placed over the bars, and the cage began a-rockin'.

Then at the end of the night, Kelly made an open call for ladies in the crowd to come on stage to dance with him - but by then, things were getting a little too loose for security, who had to remove one woman in a tight, silver sequined dress who went charging for Kelly. (The bartenders, too, transformed into bouncers to keep dancing fans on stage at bay.)

These were the sort of so-ridiculous-they're-borderline-brilliant antics we've come to expect from R. Kelly. And they were hardly the only ones.

He caused an uproar at the 40-minute mark when he said, straight-faced, that he was done . . . only to turn things in his favor when he said he was mistaken and actually had 52 more songs to run through. At one point when the stage went dark, Kelly whispered "I'm in the audience," sending fans into a tantalizing search. He even sat on a throne at one point, and helped himself to a drink at the bar because "I deserve it," while the audience sang a medley of his hits for about six minutes.

There were only a couple of songs, including a melodramatic rendition of "I Believe I Can Fly," that Kelly and his eight-piece band performed in full near the end of the 100-minute set. But it actually worked to his favor, with the full songs serving as climax to a long evening of musical foreplay. And this crowd loved to be teased, collectively erupting into a renewed burst of cheers and singing almost every time a new 30-second song snippet began.

R. Kelly could have even sung an opera song and "booga booga booga" and the crowd would have loved it. He proved as much Saturday, when he actually did sing an opera song and "booga booga booga," and the crowd did indeed love it.

The Single Ladies Tour: Dallas Show Review

The Dallas Morning News: Section 206, Seat 7: R. Kelly at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie 

He is who you think he is. 

A lot more, and a little bit less, too.

If any new Batman franchise exists out there (anyone? anyone?), R. Kelly could be a natural choice for the hero-villain Two-Face. All id and no guile, he’s completely sincere in his efforts to woo, tantalize, lift up and spiritualize. He’s confident in his ability to croon, make you swoon, make you drool and recognize.

He’s all-temperature R., a man for all seasons of radio. And he proved all that and more in his salacious yet spiritual show at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie on Thursday night.

I mean, this a show where a woman signs a waiver when she’s taken on stage. Really. Exactly what were they doing underneath that backlit curtain in that cage with those shackles? He’ll never tell, but imaginations run wild. Just make a wild, and I do mean wild, guess. (I work for a family newspaper, so that’s all you, honey …)

At one point, R. bellied up to one of the two bars with one of his backup singers and turned almost ten microphones toward the crowd, dubbing it “Kel’s Karaoke.” Ingenious, really. Remind people that you are there to give them a show that’s worth their money. And then make them sing your songs to you.

And that’s what the crowd’s cheers did, in essence, for the man who took to a throne near the close of the show. They serenaded the “Pied Piper of R&B.” What? You didn’t know?

Now you do.

R. Kelly calls new tour 'one big dating game'

Singer-songwriter R. Kelly is in a unique position: having too many hits.

He is modern R&B’s most prolific artist and producer, going back to 1992 and his days in R. Kelly and the Public Announcement before going solo with “12 Play” (1993), “R. Kelly” (1995), “TP-2.com” (2000), “Happy People”/“You Saved Me” (2004) and “Love Letter” (2010).

He also has produced and written for the industry’s top acts — names such as Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Celine Dion, Aaliyah, Britney Spears, Toni Braxton, Maxwell and Usher.

So when Grammy-winning Kelly mounts a new tour, he stuffs his set list with everything — not just his own hits but also the hits he worked on for others.

“For me, that’s the hardest part of the show,” he says. “It takes me three or four weeks to gather all the files and decide what you’re going to hear and what’s going to go where.”

Artists know there are certain songs in their repertoire that are musts — songs they have to perform or risk fan revolt.

“That’s fortunate and unfortunate because even those are a lot of songs for me,” Kelly says. “I’m coming from 26 years in the business doing these hits. People grew up with them, and everyone has their favorites.”

R. Kelly brings unique musical mix to Milwaukee

He's won three Grammys and sold more than 35 million albums, but there were times in recent years where it looked as if R. Kelly's career would come to an abrupt end.

First there was a major scandal in 2002, where a video allegedly depicting the Chicago R&B star having sex with an underage teen was sent to the Chicago Sun-Times. Kelly continued to release music through the trial in 2008. A guilty plea could have destroyed his career, but he was acquitted on all 14 counts.

In 2011, Kelly had to undergo emergency throat surgery in Chicago to drain an abscess on one of his tonsils.

"It was scary as hell," Kelly said. "(My voice) is my life. That is my heart. For my voice to be gone for two weeks, it was like my heart stopped beating. . . . It humbled me in a lot of ways."

But not too much. In a recent phone interview, it was evident that Kelly, 45, has a healthy self-esteem. However, as he says with a nearly fully recovered voice, he feels "blessed to be back."

In 2012, he's clearly been making up for all those potential lost years, with a new album, "Write Me Back," and another on the way, plus forthcoming installments of the out-there "Trapped in the Closet" hip-hop saga that began in 2005, and the release of his memoirs, "Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me."

Then there's his Single Ladies Tour which makes a stop Saturday in Milwaukee. Kelly lived in Milwaukee for a time in the '80s with former Bucks player Craig Hodges.
"He was going to manage me," Kelly said. "He bought me my first keyboard when I made it in the business."

The legal charges filed against Kelly and the resulting stigma were among a series of obstacles Kelly has endured, as portrayed in "Soulacoaster," written with David Ritz.

The Single Ladies Tour: Los Angeles (Nov. 2) Show Review

Variety:  R. Kelly (Nokia Theater; 7,100 capacity; $125 top)

His career is predicated on wild, at times dangerous impulsiveness, but the structure of an R. Kelly concert is surprisingly uniform. A blitzkrieg half-hour medley, seemingly designed to demonstrate how many hit songs the singer can afford to just shrug off, gets the ball rolling, followed by a bizarre bit of psychosexual theater, with a ballad section and some old-school soul jams bringing down the curtain. This predictability doesn't make the overall effect any less thrilling, however, and Friday night at the Nokia Theater, the 45-year-old displayed all the time-honed instincts of a natural showman.

Of course, the word "predictable" is always relative when the subject is R. Kelly. Even though he's spent the last several years churning out predominantly chaste, retro-leaning projects -- most recently this summer's "Write Me Back" -- one rarely forgot that this was one of the most satyr-like, scandal-plagued superstars of the last few decades, and nearly all the night's unscripted moments were libidinous in nature. Kelly hardly even reacted when a front-row fan took a healthy grab of his crotch; an improvised a cappella song about pleasuring himself while listening to his own music went on for a good two minutes; and after an excited audience member managed to whisper a lengthy request into his ear, he quipped, "Girl, I've never even heard of that...and I'm R. Kelly." 

Yet this was nonetheless a more dignified incarnation of the singer, as even his most prurient moments relied more heavily on cock-eyed lasciviousness than the gonzo sleaze of yore, and the mise-en-scene added to the sense of uptown glamour. Billed as the "Single Ladies" tour (though it's hard to recall Kelly ever dedicating his music to any other demo), this year's jaunt featured a stage decked out with cream-colored satin curtains, an eight-piece band recessed far back into the stage beside a grand, gleaming staircase and two onstage bars on the wings, where nattily attired bartenders served drinks to women throughout the show.

Wearing a white leather jacket with the word "single" lit up in rhinestones on his sleeve, Kelly took little time to warm up, launching immediately into a nonstop half-hour's worth of song fragments that left him drenched in sweat from five minutes on. While this treatment was surely the most efficient way to acknowledge the depth of his catalogue -- Kelly touched on more than three dozen songs through the night, all of which he either wrote or co-wrote -- it all seemed little more than an extended tease. (Any aud members who paused to tie their shoes could have missed "Freaky in the Club," "Bump N' Grind" or "Ignition (Remix)" completely.)

The show improved significantly when the pace settled down, and Kelly lingered long enough to actually inhabit "12 Play" and "Fiesta." Though the latter-day converts who appreciate Kelly's depravities more than his talents might have been disappointed by the lack of "Trapped in the Closet" material, he did nod to his more outre side with a solo rendition of the gloriously unhinged recitative "Real Talk," to widespread audience tumult.
While often ignored in the wake of his more cartoonish antics, Kelly's voice remains one of the most potent instruments in contemporary R&B, capable of great sweetness, grit, sinewy insinuation and daredevil flights of melisma that would leave most singing show contestants gasping for air. The use of pre-recorded backing tracks at pop shows is so widespread these days that it often feels silly to get upset over it, but watching Kelly go strong for nearly two hours without any technological enhancement served as a simple reminder that concerts are considerably more riveting when the singer is actually singing. 

For this reason, the balladeer portion of the show was more successful than most, especially as it started with standout new track "Green Light," which grinded with all the more force for its relative subtlety. Though a main-set closing "I Believe I Can Fly" was clearly intended to hit an emotional high point, the song -- as saccharine as it is toxically overplayed -- couldn't touch the preceding "I Wish," which swapped out the inspirational platitudes for evocative, melancholy details.

The Single Ladies Tour: Los Angeles (Nov. 2) Show Review

The Hollywood Reporter: R. Kelly Talks Dirty, Admits Having Sex to his Music, Cages Female Fan at L.A. Tour Stop

The Bottom Line

The self-proclaimed "King of R&B" ripped through more than 50 songs and 20 years of music in a full spectacle of a set that indulged the fantasies of all in attendance -- especially his own.

Venue
Nokia Theatre
Los Angeles
(Friday, Nov. 2)

When the R&B singer R. Kelly told a packed theatre on Friday night that he'd "like to give you your money's worth by doing a damn show," fans who paid $50 to $125 to catch the Los Angeles stop of his "Single Ladies" tour were elated and, as it turns out, not at all disappointed.

Between this year's single "Green Light" and a section he called "Kells Karaoke," for which he sat down with his three backup singers for drinks at two working bars, complete with bartenders, that flanked the front of the stage, it was indeed a show, propelled by that ego of Kelly's and the perfectionism it manifests. It's what makes Kelly such a captivating entertainer -- how he gives himself over completely to the performance.

As such, this show had everything fans could ask for: It began and ended with blasts of white confetti as Kells stepped on a prop staircase, dressed in a white leather jacket with lights that spelled "SINGLE" on one sleeve and "V.I.ME" (Very Important Me) on the back. He sang into a diamond-bedazzled microphone as a full band stood in matching white. The concert also had skits, improvised vocals, elaborate props, audience members brought onstage, a catwalk into the pit where Kelly could stroll and gently reach out to touch everyone standing in the front. He sang more than 50 songs in total, not all complete but including the hook and at the very least enough to delight those who came hoping he'd play that one favorite. It wasn't just a show; it was a fully immersive spectacle.

The Single Ladies Tour: Los Angeles (Nov. 2) Show Review

Los Angeles Times: R. Kelly turns it on at Nokia Theatre

R. Kelly had already been onstage for half an hour Friday night at Nokia Theatre when he announced that it was time to say what was on his mind.

“I [conceived] three kids listening to my own music,” sang the R&B star in apparent improvisation over a midtempo vamp by his eight-piece band. “You did it," he sang. "Why can’t I?”

The idea: If Kelly’s audience has used his music as an aphrodisiac -- a service he’s been providing for 20 years without interruption -- then shouldn’t he be entitled to the same privilege?

Evidently so.

The Single Ladies Tour: Oakland (Nov. 1) Show Review

Los Angeles Times: Sex is always selling for R. Kelly

The controversial R&B star insists he was once shy. Of course, judging from his sizzling 'Singles Ladies' show, it's hard to tell.

OAKLAND — During R. Kelly's "Single Ladies" show Wednesday , every crotch grab, pelvic thrust and naughty exchange with the audience — and there were plenty — was met with screams, whether it came from the nosebleed seats, the orchestra pit or the two bars built into his set (six ladies watched from the stage, with cocktails).

"All of the single ladies are going to come out, and that's going to bring the guys because they are going to go somewhere all the ladies will be," Kelly said with a laugh in his dressing room before the show at Paramount Theatre while sipping a cocktail of his own. "We're going to make this one big giant music matchmaking game."

Wearing dark sunglasses, Kelly is accompanied by a small entourage. He initially appears reserved but breaks into huge grins when discussing his kids and spontaneous song when talking about his music.

His favorite subject, though, is the one he comes back to most often: "Hopefully," he says of the show, which he brings to Nokia Theatre this weekend, "people will hook up from this."

The art of seduction has become a hallmark of the self-proclaimed King of R&B, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, and his live show is the bread and butter of that image.

Twenty-plus years ago an up-and-coming Kelly was searching for a gimmick to liven his set. The Chicago native crafted the raunchy song, "12 Play," an unapologetically raunchy tale of how he makes love. As the saying goes, sex sells. In Kelly's case it really sold. The album, also titled "12 Play," launched one of R&B's most successful singing careers. Kelly has more than 38.5 million albums sold and 12 No. 1 singles on the R&B charts.

The Single Ladies Tour: Oakland (Nov. 1) Show Review

Inside Bay Area: R. Kelly soars into the Paramount

R. Kelly didn't want anyone to feel left out.

Thus, he felt it was necessary to explain how the seemingly exclusionary title of his current concert trek, the Single Ladies Tour, applied to everyone at the Paramount Theatre on Thursday night.

"Single can mean a lot of things," said the 45-year-old R&B vocalist, basically contradicting every dictionary in the known universe. "If you are here with the one you love and you don't get your (act) together, then you too will be single."

Now it all makes sense. Except, of course, for how the whole "ladies" angle applied to the men in attendance during the second half of a two-night stand at the ornate downtown Oakland venue.

To be honest, Kelly probably isn't all that concerned about the guys -- they've never been his core audience and, in all likelihood, they never will be.

The different reaction between the sexes was quite striking. The women were ecstatic throughout the nearly two-hour show -- whooping and hollering, bumping and grinding, to just about every song the star sang. Many of the boyfriends and husbands in the crowd, however, were rather sedate, content to just sit in their seats and count up all the Brownie points they were earning during the evening.

Interview with The Wall Street Journal

On his new album, "Write Me Back" (RCA), R. Kelly sets aside his contemporary R&B and often sexually explicit themes to embrace the smooth soul and classic R&B of his youth, spent here on the South Side. It's a transition that began with his late-2010 release, "Love Letters." On both discs, Mr. Kelly, 45, pays tribute to Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Etta James, Eddie Levert, Smokey Robinson, Teddy Pendergrass, Stevie Wonder and others, often by co-opting their tones and phrasing as he sings. But by writing new songs that refresh the old-school sound, Mr. Kelly, who is nothing if not audacious, justifies his place in their class.

For Robert Sylvester Kelly, who's on the road now with his Single Ladies Tour, the two albums are in large part a tribute to his late mother, Joann. In his autobiography, "Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me," Mr. Kelly portrays her as relentless in her encouragement and support, transferring to him her love of classic soul and R&B.

"I wanted the feeling of sitting on the porch with my mother and my uncles," he said by phone. "When I sing these songs, the memories start to wake up. You can smell the fragrances. We all say 'I know she's smiling down on me,' but I really do believe it."

The Single Ladies Tour: Chicago (Oct. 25) Show Review

Chicago Sun-Times: R. Kelly honors classic hometown soul 

There is not much love for a single guy on a rainy Thursday night in Chicago.

Unless you were fortunate enough to stumble into R. Kelly's "The Single Ladies Tour" which made a one-night stand (to be repeated Oct. 26) at the Arie Crown Theater at McCormick Place.

Tight skirts. Shrieking. Low cut tops.

More shrieking. It was like being at an Oprah taping.

It was one of the weirdest shows I have seen in recent memory....

"The Single Ladies Tour" is only two weeks old and it is something to behold. I like the operatic range of R. Kelly's voice and his last two albums "Write Me Back" and "Love Letter" honor the classic soul of his hometown fathers like Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield and Donny Hathaway. To me there is no better sound than soul music. But on Thursday Kelly became such a cliche playing up to the ladies---there was even an ample "Ladies Only" section at the front of the stage-- his gifts were mostly lost in all the nonsense. And this isn't the first time a sexed up soul singer toured in a tribute to estrogen. The late great Teddy Pendergrass was all about bumps in the night during his 1978 "For Ladies Only" tour.

The Single Ladies Tour: Chicago (Oct. 25) Show Review

Rolling Stone: R. Kelly Impresses, Confounds in Chicago

Invariably, there comes a point during an R. Kelly concert when the self-proclaimed King of R&B steps front and center – as he did on Thursday evening during the first of two gigs in Chicago on his Single Ladies tour – and lets the audience know what's on his mind. He doesn't say it so much as sings it.

"I'm horny from singing all these eye-candy songs," crooned the Pied Piper, dressed head to toe in white-on-white, including jeans, a leather jacket with the word "SINGLE" on one sleeve and a finely-pressed T-shirt, to the hooting, hollering hometown crowd. After admitting he makes love to his own music – he's tried it with others', it just doesn't work – he offered up some "real talk." R. Kels, it seems, was recently rejected by his main squeeze. "Kels wants you to have his baby," he told her, but she wasn't into that. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he replied, completely serious.

It's confounding yet hilariously exhilarating moments like these that make an R. Kelly show unlike any you're bound to attend in the near future. And it's largely because the singer is a showman to the utmost: he's eager to shock, confuse and impress in equal parts. At times his show resembles audible pornography; there's only so many times you can hear about him getting all up in that. But those checking their discretion at the door are in for an unforgettable evening.

Kelly's show, it must be noted, is a meticulous, well-rehearsed and highly synchronized affair. The elaborate stage set is visually stunning; on Thursday it included two cocktail bars (stocked with actual bartenders and female patrons) and a shimmering white platform with a massive staircase on which the singer's crack eight-piece band stood all evening. And Kelly's rapport with his band is readily apparent. All parties were on cue throughout.

Frankly, though, there's just so much to digest. At one point, Kelly rated women for their mock-stripping ability as he watched from an actual throne. Later, the singer emerged from the audience and writhed in ecstasy on the ground. Then, to top it off, he placed a female audience member in a cage, handcuffed her (after she signed a waiver, of course), and had the crowd watch as he pretended to leave her, umm, hot and bothered.

He did, of course, also sing his walking hard-on of a heart off, and it was a mighty display of talent. This wasn't shocking: the 45-year-old has a divine voice. It also helped that he comes armed with a massive collection of songs on which to put his impressive tool to work.

Admittedly, it's quite easy to forget the ridiculous breadth of Kelly's discography. In just shy of two hours the suave singer busted out what seemed like every notable cut in his extraordinary repertoire (ironically, his latest single, and the tour's namesake, "Feelin' Single," never did make an appearance). His pop gems ("I'm A Flirt," "Ignition (Remix)," "Fiesta," "Hotel") cuddled up against his let's-get-nekkid-and-make-babies classics ("Bump N' Grind," "Your Body's Calling"). Few tracks would actually be sung in full – only the inspirational set closer "I Believe I Can Fly" and the encore "When A Woman Loves" received this honor. But it hardly mattered. All shenanigans aside, listening to Kelly sing anything is an experience impossible not to relish.

The Single Ladies Tour: Chicago (Oct. 25) Show Review

Chicago Tribune:  Dapper, soulful and weird R. Kelly on display at Arie Crown

R. Kelly knows how to make an entrance. At Arie Crown Theater on Thursday, he descended a white staircase in his dapper best – dressed in all white, his jacket flashing the word "single" down one sleeve. He called for all the ladies to make some noise, to which they happily obliged through a nearly two-hour set that spanned a dizzying amount of material from his two-decade-long career. In the first half hour alone, he touched on no less than 20 songs medley-style.

The frenetic pace of the first part of the set highlighted his showmanship, along with his five-piece band and three backup singers who switched song gears effortlessly. He breathlessly perused parts of "Fiesta," and "I'm A Flirt" along with dozens more medleys, with a slightly longer stop at "Ignition (Remix)." These songs would've been better served as whole versus the mega-mashup treatment. Still, the approach was entertaining, and his voice was in top form, which really shone during several a capellas he delivered and during "I Believe I Can Fly."

At times the show also felt like a live "Trapped in The Closet" episode (which he touched on, too), hitting absurd heights. R. Kelly confessed while singing that he broke up with his girlfriend last week because she didn't want to have his baby and also sang about being turned on by his own songs. He spent too much time for a karaoke portion, where the audience sang his tunes while he smoked a cigar at one of the two tended bars set up onstage. And things got weirder and exploitive, such as when female fans participated in a contest where they suggestively danced on a platform.

But the show truly jumped the shark when he picked a woman from the audience who was then chained inside a cage (after signing a release form) where R. Kelly joined her before it was covered by a sheet. The cage then shook and who knows what exactly happened inside it, but it seemed untoward. And that's the dichotomy of R. Kelly and his performance: the gifted singer, the consummate entertainer, the seductive philanderer and exploitive braggadocio ("Down Low (Nobody Has To Know")), the humorous double-entendre spinner ("You Remind Me Of Something"), the caring son ("I Wish"), the adept retro-soul singer/songwriter ("When A Man Lies"). While the tour may be billed for "The Single Ladies," R. Kelly was too convoluted to be convincing that it wasn't more self-serving than that.

The Single Ladies Tour: Miami Show Review

R. Kelly's Single Ladies Tour: Realer Than Swag in Miami, October 21

R. Kelly
Single Ladies Tour
James L. Knight Center, Miami
Sunday, October 21, 2012

Better Than : A night at the strip club.

From The-Dream to Trey Songz, an entire generation of R&B stars have found fame retracing R. Kelly's footsteps. But it's doubtful that any of his acolytes could pull off a show as virtuosic, multi-faceted and thoroughly entertaining as last night's Single Ladies tour stop at James L. Knight Center.

Kelly allowed few dull moments in a two-hour set that packed in something like 70 songs, and he sounded flawless scoring some of the show's biggest highlights with a cappella versions of songs like "Real Talk." Hell, he even sang opera--convincingly, too. "Opera is what allows my voice to be able to sing for y'all ass for two hours on this stage," he said, shouting out his vocal coach.

R. Kelly on Single Ladies and Black Panties: "I Wanted to Do an Album for the Strip Club"

He's an R&B genius. He's also a filthy freak.

Lately, though, this oh-so-nasty man -- known to the authorities as Robert Sylvester Kelly -- has been tryin' hard to behave himself, donning formalwear, smoking fancy cigars, talking about true romance, penning a thoughtful personal memoir titled Soulacoaster, and just generally acting the perfect gentleman.

But now R. Kelly is back on the prowl. He's hitting the road with his Single Ladies Tour. He's prepping an extra-sexy new album. And he's seeking out every female in America. Even the married mamas. 

"Oh, yeah! Gettin' ready, baby," Kelly chirps. "This tour isn't designed strictly for the single ladies," he snickers. "The show is full of old-school R. Kelly and new-school R. Kelly. So there'll definitely be 12 Play R. Kelly mixed with the TP-2 R. Kelly and right on through the Happy People R. Kelly. The whole nine!"  

So get set to let your booty sweat while the Pied Piper humps, praises, digs deep, screams his own name, and works it out on classics like "Bump 'n' Grind," "The Greatest Sex," and "It's Your Birthday."

The Single Ladies Tour: Birmingham Show Review

R. Kelly is sexy (and he knows it) at BJCC Concert Hall in Birmingham

★★★★ (out of 5)

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- One big tease. 

That’s a simple way to describe R. Kelly’s performance on Sunday night at Birmingham's BJCC Concert Hall. 

Kelly’s 8:50 p.m. show was filled with song vignettes, macho charisma and sexual innuendo, dangled tantalizingly in front of the crowd for nearly two hours. 

But it stopped just short of total satisfaction, partly because this talented singer, songwriter and frontman seems to want it that way. Everything he does is foreplay -- or “12 Play,” as Kelly so famously phrased it on his solo debut in 1993. 

Fans here were kept in a state of thrall, waiting to see how far the R&B dynamo would go, with his tunes and his staging and his audience interactions. 

Would Kelly sing a full version of “Your Body’s Callin',” “In the Kitchen,” “I’m a Flirt” or “Fiesta”? Would he actually pick out a woman that night, and bring her back to his hotel room? How much was happening in that cage draped with a translucent cloth, rocking back and forth on stage?