Kelly (who produced Price's "Friend Of Mine") decided to strike out with their own efforts at traditional R&B, it was a revelation and a turning point. When high-profile R&B newcomers like Erykah Badu and R. Listeners who had followed soul into disco into funk into rap and hiphop, always searching for the next great musical thing, had bought into rap because so-called "urban" R&B and "smooth" jazz had abandoned the grit and passion of 60's rhythm and blues. All that was lacking was recognition and interest, a spark that would light a fire under listeners beyond its core audience.
Underground R&B finally had momentum again. Nor was he aware that as the millennium approached more and more R&B artists were pounding on the door of southern, if not national, radio stations. Nice was hardly aware something called "Southern Soul" existed. At that point all three singers joined in a truly amazing call-and-response climax. Biggs ( Ronald Isley) (at which point the song became a duet), pouring out her tale of misery, and Isley insisted on telephoning R. On its simplest level, "Friend Of Mine" was the story of a girl (Kelly Price) betrayed by her sexy lover (R. Kelly's relevance to Southern Soul R&B in 1998, when-along with the release of his retro classic, "When A Woman's Fed Up"-he appeared in a stunning music video on BET and MTV for Kelly Price's debut single, "Friend of Mine." Kelly singing "When A Woman's Fed Up" on YouTube. When I listen to the latest Kelly or Badu product, I just shake my head and wonder why people can't see that the "emperor" is not wearing any clothes. Because I truly believe Southern Soul music is far superior to anything contemporary hiphop is producing. It's a shame-I don't know what else to say. Kelly is now a historical footnote in the re-emergence of Southern Soul music-no longer an active or even semi-active player. Sam, Simeo and others-have actually crashed through the barriers and become in varying degrees fixtures on the Southern Soul scene.Ĭonsequently, R. Kelly mold over the last decade- Sir Charles Jones, T.
What's most ironic about the situation is that many of the artists who came out of the hiphop side of R&B in the R. The young, supposedly-hip people who buy into this music you can't dance to apparently buy enough records to sway the artists away from tuneful, danceable, verse-and-chorus songwriting. That's because he's gone over entirely into the hiphop scene, and his music (again, like Badu's) is almost impenetrably unmelodic, un-swinging and overblown. Kelly on chitlin' circuit-style stations, you no longer hear R. Unlike the late nineties and early 00's, when you could often hear a traditional R&B song by R. Kelly has become less and less relevant to Southern Soul music. Kelly's personal character or his legal travails (and I have taken a lot of heat for largely ignoring them), the man is (or was) a musical genius and he had a function in whetting the appetite of soul music lovers for the Southern Soul we know and love today.īut like Erykah Badu, R. Kelly on the Southern Soul website, go to "Kelly, R." in Daddy B. To instantly link to all the awards, citations and other references to R. Nice's Top 100 Countdown: The New Generation (Chart In Progress) Kelly - Southern Soul Music Artist - Southern Soul RnB Accolades The album was included in Rolling Stone 's 50 Best Albums of 2003.R. The hit 'Ignition (Remix)' was his warmest joint to date, and set the tone for the new record-and maybe a new stage in his career'. Keith Harris of (2004) wrote that by the album's release, Kelly had 'apparently learned from Michael Jackson's publicity mistakes, because the new Kelly was less haunted, if no less horny.
Together with such craft and invests them with such conviction that they become a strange sort of pulp poetry', adding that he 'matches his shamelessness with a gift for crafting melodies that burrow their way into listeners' subconscious with almost sadistic force'. 's wrote that Kelly 'stitches' his 'hopelessly cheesy' come-ons and 'honeyed promises. Channeling greats from to, his stripped-down bangers bang harder, his have more bluster, and he sings with the desperation of a loveman who knows the cops are waiting at his bedroom door. On Kelly's performance, Leroy concluded by writing: In the end, though, it’s R’s musical genius that pulls his bare butt out of this fire.