MUSIC REVIEW | R. KELLY A Stream of Medleys, a Flash of Sincerity

By BEN RATLIFF ~ R. Kelly was aiming to have a new album, “Untitled” (Jive), out by now. Its release has been postponed until Dec. 1, but the dates for his Ladies Make Some Noise! tour stayed fixed, and the delay of the record either freed or forced him to put more emphasis on his nonmusical life in his show at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden on Friday. -Last year Mr. Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges in Chicago. “I was kind of scared to bring it up,” he announced deep into the show, looking suddenly cautious, “but this is the first tour since my court case.”

He gathered some bravado. “They said, ‘Don’t bring it up.’ ” He swore. “I’m a grown man. I’m still here.”

Finally he was getting somewhere. Mr. Kelly had been running through medleys, something he has often done in the past; he roamed the stage with Andre Boykins, one of his longtime collaborators, leading the crowd in tag-team singalongs.

For a long while the show was calculated to impress upon the audience the volume of clever lyrics he has written, but without sustaining any particular cleverness. Though he was funny about once every five minutes, putting on operatic tones for nasty lyrics and dealing out lubricious parts of his repertory— “So Sexy,” “Hotel,” “I’m a Flirt,” “Freaky in the Club,” “Wonderful,” his new single “Number One” — the show was lordly and self-satisfied while proceeding in fragments. It was doing something new for R. Kelly: making him boring.

After proclaiming that he was still there for the fourth or fifth time, he started talk-singing, a device reminiscent of Sam Cooke. It always works, making his art look effortless. Before heading into the chorus of “Heaven I Need a Hug,” for a short stretch he made what seemed like stream-of-consciousness melody out of his relief:

Hallelujah, thank you, Jesus.

I’m still here.

I don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for the goodness of him. CONTINUE READING...