When you're R. Kelly

Despite the fact that I'm mildly obsessed with R. Kelly, I hadn't seen Trapped In The Closet until just yesterday. I had heard it was a million parts long, and for some reason I thought that the whole thing lasted hours and hours and I felt like I just didn't have the time or energy to commit to that much R. Kelly madness. I also mistakenly thought that it was a story told via a bunch of different songs, rock opera style - and again, I couldn't muster up the level of commitment it would take to parse through something like that.

But as it turns out, each part is short, and features the same music over and over and over and over and over! It's not really made up of songs so much as it is a rambling narrative told to music. And it's really way crazier than anything I could have ever imagined. I have so many questions... but I actually had to stop after part 5 because it got too intense for me. SPOILER ALERT, I called it that the guy his wife was sleeping with was the cop: I thought it was a curiously specific detail to mention that the cop flicked his cigarette away when they were on the side of the road, then later when he smelled cigarettes in his bedroom, I KNEW. Robert insists his audience's detective skills be honed sharp!

Anyway it's been over 24 hours and I still don't feel ready for the rest of it. But I will continue on, someday, and you'll be hearing about it.

Today, Rich at FourFour posted this amazing R. Kelly interview. My favorite thing about this... is everything. I feel like I should be transcribing this just in case it does get taken down. Seriously, my favorite part is where the interviewer mentions that people around R. Kelly, such as his manager and brother, have expressed concern about his behavior, and Kells tries to brush it off like everyone who speaks out against him is someone who used to work for him, but was fired and now has a chip on their shoulder. I'm concerned, and I'm pretty sure I've never been fired by the Pied Piper of R&B.

Interviewer: But your brother Carey... was not fired, he's still your brother.
R. Kelly: He was fired.
Interviewer: But he's still your brother.
R. Kelly: Doesn't matter. He's still my brother, but if he's still my brother, why did he get fired? [He says this with a tricky, master-of-logic look]
Interviewer: Why DID he get fired?
R. Kelly: I can't get into that.

Also - "Do not listen to the people that was fired. Don't even listen to the people that was hired!"

I'm... trying to?