R. Kelly Listens to Me
If Jody Rosen, Slate’s excellent music critic, is right — and he’s been right about Bob Dylan, James Brown, and Norah Jones — then R. Kelly is listening to my views on sex in song.
Rosen writes:
But above all, R. Kelly’s point is to keep things fresh. Boudoir pop was born the day that R&B singers stopped bothering with double-entendres and got explicit. That was a breakthrough, to be sure, but the act quickly became absurd: There’s only so much talk of silk sheets and whipped cream even a hyper-sexed groupie can take before rolling her eyes. Kelly has managed to breathe life into sex music by embracing sexual farce. It’s a clever move: He gets to keep his favorite subject matter and his louche backing tracks while disarming his critics. And he can let his erotic imagination run utterly rampant. Perversion goes down easy when delivered with a wink.
Which is flattering, because I don’t listen to R. Kelly. Though I do have Ruth Brown’s cover of “I Believe I Can Fly.”
