Review: R Kelly’s “Untitled”

Guest Blog: Bongani Nkabinde:

The Hugh Hefner of r&b is back. Arguably the most talented recording artist alive in popular music circle, YES, I said it, let me know when you find an artist who can convincingly, on unaccompanied productions, not only offer you unrivaled r&b tunes, rock sounds, outshine most rappers on the rhymes, do opera and then usher us into the third heaven on his gospel melodies.

Kells does all these with ease, but if you were hoping for something along the lines of Chocolate Factory, R Kelly or R, then again you will be disappointed by this album that is lethargically named “Untitled”.

“Untitled” should’ve been unreleased. But before we move on with the review of this record let’s retro back to 2008/09 when Mr. Kelly held back what was supposed to be his ninth studio album “12 play 4^th quarter” on reasons of album leakage, as if the new one wasn’t leaked. What actually happened here is that the r&b thug thought he would pull the same stunt twice and get away with it…, not to be. Let’s travel further back to 2002/03 when he withheld the “Love-land” album on the same reasons of fraud only to drop a few months later the magnificent, ingenious “Chocolate Factory”.

What makes R. Kelly’s trickery a flop this time around is that the Chocolate Factory record was a masterpiece; in fact, the Canadian Press has named it as one of the top 10 albums of the decade, deservedly so.

This album is crappy by Robert’s talent, not his standards, which most of us know by now are so high school, acquitted or not. Katt Williams once said referring to the late Michael Jackson, “if you are called a crack head for over 20 years, chances are you are a crack head”, teenagers will love this album.

The first three tracks lay a nasty foundation of what the album is all about. 1^st Mr. Kelly meets his girls at the club, gets drunk (track one, “Crazy night”),secondly,  goes for the club’s exit door with his victim (track two, “Exit”) and thirdly, they go do one of two things R. Kelly boastfully says he has no competition on (track 7 “Like I do”), that is, sexing a woman till she yodels (track three, “Echo”), mzansi girls would probably go “kwa kwa kwa” and oh!, the other thing he says he’s unmatched on is making music, big headed. But I have to warn you, these tunes are catchy, you’ll end up yodeling yourself on your way to work.

What’s clever about the album, which is synonymous with R Kelly, is that the arrangement of these songs is not your ordinary type of r&b pattern, so they become exciting regardless of lyrical content, its senseless fun

“Untitled” is a bunch of verbal intercourse about how R Kelly gives the greatest sex, from “Banging the headboard”, to “Go Low” and “Whole lotta kisses in your private spot” one formula is applied, no grown woman can be enticed by the lyrical content of this album, so brothas, refrain from copying these lyrics, they will definitely work on most high school girls, it’s no wonder they can’t seem to pass their matric, I’m just saying.

“Be my number #2” is an 80s funk type of a tune with nicely laid horns that will have you stepping in no time, it’s  Jamiroqaish, however, the lyrical content is weak, strictly for the players. He ends the song by giving a spank to “all the hating mother-f***”, hilarious.

Then there’s the ‘sms’ song, “Text  me” which is about planning a bedroom meeting later on the day, this track has The Dream’s elements in it but he’s not on the production. This reminds me of D.O.K (Death of Kells) a diss track by Trey Songs about how R. Kelly has become a follower in the music game instead of a trend setter we had come to know him to be. Songs was irritated by infinite auto tuning on the Double Up record and the overall unimpressive production therein (as if he makes better music). He went on to say that if throwing stones at the throne wakes the king, then consider them thrown. Looks like the king almost woke up, excerpt for the 1^st track, there aren’t recognizable T-pain –in-the-ass trends on the Lp. Probably the more decent tracks are “Religious” and “Elsewhere” , these songs ‘almost’ make u appreciate the sound of ballads. I say ‘almost’ because they are not really great songs but they are listenable and saner, at least he’s not promising anyone the greatest “Number One” sex.

Enter the star studded “Pregnant”, a classic from the mediocre archives. This song features proven music makers in the music industry, Robin Thicke, Tyrese and The Dream. So the four wise men took to studio to spew bile about how they want to make some ignorant young girl pregnant, I say young girl because, again, no grown woman in her right mind would fall for such gibberish.

If you are looking for a dedicated, well penned production stay away from this album, but if you are into senseless fun, run to the nearest music shop, you might just be on time to make this album go gold after over a month since released, defiantly not by R. Kelly’s musical standards, or is it definitely…

Verdict: As Phat Joe would say , 2.5 phat lips out of 5.

By: Bongani Nkabinde

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Note from Editor:

This is a Guest Blog but I’m so laughing my ass off at this review. Would you like Bongani to write more reviews for us? Please let us know coz I’m ready to welcome him to the team, right NOW! BS.