On Friday, R&B singer Robert Kelly will release new chapters from his sprawling multi-character, multi-plotline music series, Trapped in the Closet, which first began in 2005.
While all great (and not so great) works of fiction have a beginning, middle and end, R. Kelly’s “hip-hopera” may prove to be the first work of art that defies dénouement. Its raison d'être, it would seem, is to perpetually climax, choosing to add new and ever more intriguing circumstances rather than work toward anything resembling a conclusion.
Over the last 22 chapters, Kelly has introduced almost 30 characters, several with their own plot lines full of danger, deception and Shakespearean twists, and if recent reports are true, at least 85 more chapters (and a Broadway musical) are planned.
Although, even that number seems unrealistically low when considering the Dostoyevskian attention to detail to matters both prosaic and profound in Kelly’s lyrics. One of the new chapters, for example, deals almost exclusively with a step-by-step path through a building in order to give viewers a realistic depiction of how “that guy is way up in this building,” as Kelly told a New York City audience during a recent premiere.
Then of course there is the complexity with which Kelly weaves his tales, which don’t necessarily augur well for succinctness; as one solution to a problem arises, another problem presents itself. Like an R&B David Foster Wallace, Kelly’s digressions and footnotes become the main article, placing him in the same vein as many hysterical realism authors, described by critic James Wood as thus:
The big contemporary novel is a perpetual-motion machine that appears to have been embarrassed into velocity.... Stories and sub-stories sprout on every page, as these novels continually flourish their glamorous congestion.
But within that “glamorous congestion” of characters that seem to exist for the sole purpose of moving the plot in an interminable forward motion, Kelly has created perhaps the finest eight-note-melody exploration of one man’s struggles with himself — a serialized inner psyche slow jam.
By exploring the narrator and his relationship to the characters of Sylvester, Rufus, Twon and Pimp Lucious, it becomes evident that they are not actually individual characters, but caricatures of the narrator’s psyche — his id, ego and superego (and, er, pimp), respectively.
Chapter one begins with the narrator (played by Kelly) in a closet watching Sylvester (also played by Kelly) in bed. They are both dressed identically, although the latter is in a state of disheveled undress, while the former appears to be freshly pressed.
This suggests the narrator and Sylvester are in fact the same person. The latter, while acting on his id impulses, has been unfaithful to his wife with a woman named Cathy. The former, by sequestering himself in the closet, is in fact distancing himself from the misdeed, both physically and emotionally.
However, when Cathy’s husband Rufus comes home, Sylvester is forced to hide in the closet with the narrator, forcing him to come to terms with what he’s done. Sylvester must then confront his guilt when his phone rings and he fails to put it on “vi-i-i-br-a-A-a-A-a-te” (this word executed in a beautifully appropriate vibrato), alarming Rufus to someone else in the house.
While a frantic Rufus searches for the noise, proclaiming, “There’s a mystery going on and I’m going to solve it” (not only a massive understatement, but just one of the numerous examples of how Kelly uses foreshadowing), Sylvester pulls out his Beretta.
At this stage, Sylvester is all id; lascivious and violent without any thought toward the consequences of his actions. That is, until he meets Rufus, the cuckolded husband and, most importantly, a pastor.
When Rufus opens the closet to find Sylvester, gun drawn, Kelly sings, “Now he’s staring at me, just like he’s staring in a mirror.”
This statement speaks to the underlying connectivity between Sylvester the adulterer and Rufus the holy man and, in turn, every character in Trapped in the Closet, who all exist to reflect the various aspects of the narrator’s psyche that they each represent (the fact that Rufus turns out to be having an affair with a man is an aspect best left to another analysis).
For this purpose, the most important aspect about Rufus is his vocation, a clear representation of the narrator’s preoccupation with being a “good Christian,” itself a phrase that comes up repeatedly when Sylvester is in heated situations. This is Sylvester acting on ego, the part of his psyche that balances the id with reasoning and tolerance.
One of the most interesting relationships, however, is between Sylvester and Twon, Sylvester's hot-headed brother-in-law, recently released from jail. In Twon, Sylvester sees a younger version of himself, the one who would be quick to not only pull the gun, but fire it.
Not only are the two related through marriage, but when Twon attempts to smoke weed in the car, Sylvester reminds him that he himself also served time in jail and doesn’t wish to go back. “You crazier than a fish with titties if you think I'mma let you smoke that shit up in my car,” Kelly sings.
While around Twon, who is pure, unchecked id, Sylvester moves toward the superego, becoming the overarching conscience of the two. This is marked by Sylvester’s insistence on wearing a suit while Twon, in a backwards hat — that Sylvester keeps telling him to fix — and jogging suit, appears as “LL FooL J.”
But the suit’s effect is twofold: in one regard, it reflects an embrace of a more rational approach; in another, it brings Sylvester closer to the canary yellow suit-wearing Pimp Lucious, the series' most notorious character (just note his indifference in Chapter 19 to the church choir singing, "You can do it Pimp Lucius, just stop pimpin’"). It’s no coincidence that as Sylvester’s suits grow sharper, his seemingly harmless activities are exposed to be blatantly criminal, and possibly life threatening.
While it’s clear that these characters serve a distinct purpose in the narrator’s psyche, with so many future chapters planned, it’s hard to tell where Trapped in the Closet will lead. At this point, there are more unanswered questions than solutions. Will Sylvester embrace the “good Christian” way, as he advocated so strongly for in the early chapters, or will he move toward the mysterious Pimp Lucious, who proudly claims that “pimpin’s for life”? Also, why is Rosie so nosy, and why is Bridget having an affair with a “midget”?
For the latter two, it's because they rhyme, and this is a song, after all. But when it comes to Rufus, Twon and Pimp Lucious, each character provides a key to unlocking the inner psyche of Sylvester and, in turn, R. Kelly himself.
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