R. Kelly comfortably straddles the line between genius and madman with every new interview and dramatically ad-libbed verse. Does he have questionable taste in his romantic partners? Yes. Is his music equal parts preposterous and amazing? Definitely (See: The Zoo, Real Talk, Sex Planet, I’m A Flirt, etc). For me this paradox reached fever pitch in the summer of 2005 when he began the Trapped In the Closet saga. A twenty two song soap opera set to a drippy bass heavy beat with R. Kelly’s conversational lyric style telling of cheating spouses, terrified midgets, surprise pregnancies, down low brothers, and itchy trigger fingers. Each chapter was accompanied by an insane music video starring and at times narrated by Kelly as a Jimny Cricket-esque character wearing a suit, smoking a cigar and trying to make sense of these tangled lives. Artist Michael Bell-Smith took the first twelve chapters (there were eventually 22) and synched them to be played simultaneously. The results are chaotic and beautiful.
Chapters 1-12 of R. Kelly’s Trapped In The Closet Synced and Played Simultaneously (2006) by Michael Bell-Smith. Courtesy EAI. from Why + Wherefore on Vimeo.
