R. Kelly Describes Angry Ex-Wife Throwing $50,000 Ring In A Pond In New Book, ‘Soulacoaster, The Diary Of Me’

by Billy Johnson, Jr.

R. Kelly shares candid details of his 12-year marriage to Hollywood Exes star Andrea Kelly in his autobiography, Soulacoaster, The Diary of Me, out Thursday on SmileyBooks.

Andrea, who is the mother of Kelly’s three children, is a cast member on the VH1 reality show that also stars former spouses of Eddie Murphy, Prince, Jose Canseco and Will Smith.

[Related: R. Kelly in debt]

In the Soulacoaster chapter “The Breakup,” Kelly describes the day a frustrated Andrea took off her $50,000 wedding ring and threw it in a pond in their backyard.

The problems in Kelly and Andrea’s marriage had been mounting. According to Kelly, he continued to struggle with infidelity, Andrea was unhappy walking away from her dance career to be a stay-at-home mother, and they were constantly fighting.

Andrea KellyOne day, Kelly said he confronted Andrea about her feelings for him and it backfired.

“The way you’re acting around here,” he wrote, “I don’t think you love me anymore.” He repeated the statement, but she did not respond. So he challenged her.

“If you really don’t love me, I dare you to take off your wedding ring and throw it in the pond out back,” he wrote.

Andrea replied that the proposal wasn’t a good idea. “You might not like what your dare will make me do,” she said.

Kelly continued.

“Drea took the dare,” he wrote. “She marched out to the yard and threw the ring in the pond — ‘plunk!’ Man, I couldn’t believe it. I offered $10,000 to anyone who could fish that ring out of the pond. No one could.”

R. KellyTheir problems escalated. They began discussing divorce. When Kelly realized that the relationship was over, he went to the movies by himself to see The Notebook. Though he enjoyed the love story about a couple who grew old together and died in each other’s arms, he got visibly emotional in the theater.

“As the film credits started to roll, I couldn’t move,” he wrote. “I burst into tears. People walking past me patted me on the back, trying to console me. The Notebook was beautiful, and I was crying because its hero and heroine had died together. But I was also crying because I remembered a Valentine’s Day — when a helicopter dropped a rainfall of roses — that had come and gone. My marriage had died. And there was nothing I could do to bring it back.”

[Related: R. Kelly rushed back to Chicago after falling ill]

Kelly met Andrea when she auditioned to be one of his background dancers. He described their meeting as love at first sight. Though his initial attraction was physical, he loved her confidence. He described her as a lioness who “calmed [his] inner storms.”

In the book co-authored by David Ritz, who also has titles with Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye and Janet Jackson, Kelly discusses being molested by a teenage girl when he was a child, being illiterate, his elementary school teacher who recognized his musical talent, and his fallout with Jay-Z during the promotional run of their Best Of Both Worlds album and tour.

Kelly released this week his album, Write Me Back.

R. Kelly, ‘Soulacoaster: The Diary Of Me’ Excerpt: Singer Recalls Inspirational Teacher

by Kia Makarechi

R. Kelly has a new book out now, a three-act opus on what it was like to go from Robert Sylvester Kelly to the most successful R&B artist of the past 25 years.

“Back in the Day,” the first act of Soulacoaster: The Diary Of Me, focuses on his upbringing in the South Side of Chicago. Kelly shares the inspiring story of his relationship with his music teacher — Ms. Lena McLin — who predicted that it would be music, not basketball, which would prove to be young Robert’s ultimate calling.

Acts II (“Getting Busy”) and III (“In the Ring”) delineate his rise to fame — and the struggles that come with it. A press release provided to HuffPost Entertainment states that the book, which was published June 28, is frank in its discussion of his bouts with “the hard-to-resist sexual and financial temptations that accompany sudden stardom.”

In press materials, Kelly described the project as a survival memoir. “In the end, I am saved by the music,” he said. “Liked ‘Trapped in the Closet,’ life for me is full of cliff-hangers … I am saved by God’s gift of love. If through my words and music I can pass on that gift to the readers, I am the happiest man on earth.”

Unfortunately, Kelly recently canceled promotional appearances for the book on account of a health emergency. It was later revealed that he suffered complications from a throat surgery and had to return to Chicago. Best wishes.

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10 Things Revealed in R. Kelly’s Memoir

From abuse to a McBeef with Jay-Z and, yes, even celibacy, the singer opens up in Soulacoaster.

by Akoto Ofori-Atta

(The Root) — R. Kelly’s past is hardly free of scandal. But if you’re looking for any juicy details about the singer-songwriter’s child-pornography trial (he was acquitted of all charges in 2008), his alleged marriage to singer Aaliyah when she was 15 or recent tax troubles in his new memoir, Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me, you’ll be disappointed.

Instead, the singer muses about his relationship with his doting mother and shares surprising tidbits that might give some insight into the troubled singer’s life. Kelly, who is currently dealing with complications from a recent throat surgery, wrote openly about love, music and sex. We’ve pulled out a few of the most fascinating stories from his life. Our favorite is his McBeef with Jay-Z. Read on.

1. He has debilitating dyslexia.

It’s ironic that one of the most prolific songwriters of our generation — he’s written for Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson and Mary J. Blige, to name a few — suffers from a debilitating form of dyslexia that makes it difficult for him to read, write or spell. When he was growing up, his inability to learn made him fearful of school. “Every time my teacher called on me to read, my heart sank,” Kelly wrote. By the time he got to high school, he was skipping class regularly and hiding in an old music room with an abandoned piano, where he taught himself how to play.

2. He still carries around a bullet from a childhood gunshot wound.

The R&B thug might have unintentionally earned his street cred when he was shot in the shoulder by stray gunfire at age 11. Hearing gunshots as a child growing up in the South Side of Chicago, he wrote, was no rare occurrence. “But this gunshot was different. This POW! rang in my ear … It was like I was leaving my body.” The bullet is still lodged in his shoulder, but his only concern at the time was whether or not his injury would affect his jump shot and prevent him from playing basketball.

3. He’s a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

He grew up in a house full of women — cousins, aunts, friends of aunts — who he said would walk around half naked and act “differently” when his mother or grandparents weren’t home. He was only 8 when he got caught watching one of them, whom he does not name, have sex with a man. Eventually, he wrote, that woman would ask him to watch and take pictures of her and her partner in the act. On a separate occasion, another woman, who was at least 10 years older than Kelly, started sexually abusing him and continued to do so for years. “I was too afraid and too ashamed,” Kelly wrote about why he never told anyone.

4. He hears melodies in his head all day long.

In the book, Kelly is candid about his uncontrollable preoccupation with music. As a child, when he tried to read, the words would sometimes jump out of the page and turn into musical notes. He heard music in his head so much that he was nervous to tell anyone about it. “I couldn’t figure out if I was sick, retarded or dying, or if there was something just really messed up about me.” Eventually he embraced it, finding comfort in his mind’s radio. Songs have continued to play in his mind throughout his adult life, helping to produce his biggest hits, including “You Are Not Alone,” the first song he wrote for Michael Jackson.

5. A fight with Jay-Z inspired him to take a job at McDonald’s. Seriously.

The rapper and the singer became embroiled in a strange, memorable beef in 2002 while they were on tour for their collaborative album, Best of Both Worlds. What people might not know is how Kelly chose to handle it. Accounts about who started the disagreement differ. Jay-Z said Kelly was jealous of him; Kelly implies in his book that Jay-Z was selfish. No matter. According to Kelly, he had become so frustrated while on tour that he walked offstage and went to the place that brings him solace — McDonald’s. “But this time, I didn’t go eat. I asked the guy working the drive-through window for a uniform, and for the next three hours, I served Big Macs, fries and Cokes to customers.” We’re loving it.

6. His first girlfriend drowned while they were playing near a creek.

In one of the sadder moments of his memoir, Kelly recalls the story of his first girlfriend, Lulu. He was only 8, but they would hold hands and eat make-believe meals inside their playhouse built from cardboard, where they “vowed to be boyfriend and girlfriend forever.” Their last playdate turned tragic when, after fighting with some older kids over a play area by a creek, Lulu was pushed into the water. A fast-moving current swept her away while she screamed Kelly’s name. Shortly after, she was found dead downstream. Kelly calls Lulu his very first musical inspiration.

7. “I Believe I Can Fly” came to him in a dream when he was 9.

In an early chapter of the book, Kelly describes a dream he had when he was 9 years old. He found himself in an all-white room with a white piano in its center. He was playing a beautiful melody but was interrupted by the doorbell. He ran to the door, only to find no one standing there, so he continued on with his song. This cycle repeated itself a few times before he finally opened the door to find cartoon characters standing there, giggling. When he woke up, he couldn’t remember the song at all.

“It would take 20 years, but the words came back and made complete sense,” he wrote. The song? “I Believe I Can Fly.” The cartoon characters? The stars of Space Jam, the 1996 animated film for which the song was written.

8. He made Notorious B.I.G. cry.

As it turns out, Biggie plays an intergral role in the moment the words and melody from Kelly’s childhood dream came back to him. He and the Notorious B.I.G., who featured Kelly on his sophomore album, toured together and stayed at the same hotel in Detroit in 1996. Kelly found a piano in the lobby and he wrote that suddenly he remembered the melody from “I Believe I Can Fly.” According to Kelly, Biggie met him in the lobby, and when he sang him the song, the rapper said, with tears in his eyes, “They gonna be playing that when you and I move to the other side of time.”

9. He does see somethin’ wrong with a little bump and grind.

Believe it or not, Mr. Feelin’ on Your Booty practiced celibacy right after he proposed to his then-fiancee and now ex-wife, Andrea Kelly. It was a romantic proposal, complete with a $50,000 engagement ring, a helicopter and a dramatic walk onto the tarmac — his “dream come true.” As soon as she said yes, he decided that they shouldn’t have sex until their wedding night, and she agreed. “It would mean that for eight months between our proposal and our marriage, that love, not lust, would grow between us,” Kelly wrote.

10. He had hoop dreams.

As a young boy, Kelly took seriously his dreams of becoming a professional basketball player. He was a promising player in middle school, and because his learning disability was so severe, he suspected that the only reason he was allowed to graduate was so that he could play ball for his high school, Kenwood Academy. He did just that, but soon after his high school music teacher noticed his musical gift, she made him quit the team to focus on singing. But he still calls basketball his release. “Hooping is not just a hobby or sport. It’s a way of life.”

R. Kelly autobiography vivid despite guarded tone

by Jesse Washington

Let’s get this out of the way up front: R. Kelly’s autobiography does not discuss what really happened with the sex tape that almost sent him to prison. It does not include a single word about Aaliyah, the late singer Kelly allegedly married when she was 15. Other tantalizing incidents and individuals are glossed over. A tell-all, this is not.

Instead, “Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me” recounts the creative and family life of a once-in-a-generation performer and musician. Despite its guarded tone, the book is a vivid and entertaining journey that reveals much about the musical engine of a true artist.

Kelly, whose ability to write and produce hits for himself and others is unparalleled in modern R&B, does confront the defining theme of his career: the juxtaposition of the sacred and the profane, the sexual and the spiritual.

In the first paragraph of his life story, Kelly’s beloved mother promises that he “could achieve all things through Christ Jesus.” Turn the page, and Mama Joann is sneaking 5-year-old Robert into a lounge where she is singing with her band. Next she’s in church, speaking in tongues. A few pages later, 8-year-old Robert is inside his mother’s house on the South Side of Chicago, taking pornographic pictures of adults and being molested by a teenage girl.

And people question how “Sex Weed” and “U Saved Me” can come from the same man?

Music was a constant presence inside young Robert. He literally had sounds cascading through his mind, “like I had a radio playing nonstop in my head . I would hear melodies, although I never knew what they meant. In fact, I thought everybody heard the music.”

Kelly also never knew his father and could not read due to an undiagnosed disability. (Kelly says he is still illiterate; his book was written with David Ritz, biographer of Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, and other giants.) The only reason Kelly graduated from elementary school was because he could play basketball. All this created a shy, shameful boy who often felt “like an alien,” a phrase that reappears throughout the book.

Kelly credits his middle-school music teacher, Lena McLin, with recognizing his talent. As Kelly tells it, the first time McLin laid eyes on him in class, she singled him out and said: “You are going to be famous. You are going to write songs for Michael Jackson. You are going to travel the world.”

Did she really say that without hearing him sing or play a note? It’s difficult to decide, especially since Kelly shades the facts elsewhere in the book. It’s obvious, however, that Kelly loves McLin, and that she played an enormous role in Kelly’s development. Strangely, she vanishes from the book after Kelly drops out of high school, and one can’t help but wonder what this God-fearing pastor thought of her star pupil’s raunchy material.

“Soulacoaster” goes on to describe the rise of Kelly’s career and engrossing details of the creation of his many classic songs and albums. Fans of Kelly and black music in general will enjoy his description of working with artists from Jackson (Kelly wrote “You Are Not Alone” for him, unasked) to Celine Dion (“I’m Your Angel”) to Notorious BIG (the title of their best collaboration can’t be printed here).

His description of how he created “I Believe I Can Fly” must be read to be believed (it involves childhood dreams and melodies realized decades later). And Kelly does go into some detail about the conflicts with Jay Z during their tour, which led to Kelly being pepper-sprayed backstage and fleeing Madison Square Garden arena in the middle of a show.

He can get defensive at times. “I never considered my music sinful,” he says. “For the most part, what people see onstage – R. Kelly bumping and grinding, dropping my pants, seducing women – that’s all show business. What I do onstage doesn’t mean I jump off the stage and continue my act in real life.”

But Kelly’s sex life looms large over the book. He is frank about his inability to remain faithful to his girlfriends or wife. And a shadow is cast by Kelly’s trial on child pornography charges, which stemmed from a videotape that prosecutors said showed Kelly having sex with a minor.

Kelly was acquitted of all charges. The brief paragraphs where he discusses the “supposed sex tape” feel legally sanitized, and well-known stories about who leaked the tape and why are never addressed. “Certain episodes could not be included for complicated reasons,” Kelly writes in the author’s note at the beginning of the book.

In this all-access, reality-show era, it feels odd for a musician as bold as Kelly not to bare all. But when it comes to Kelly’s music, “Soulacoaster” leaves a clear picture of an artist, unbowed, who still has “thousands of songs to write and sing.”

 Originally posted on: RollingStone.com Read the original article here!

The R&B star recalls meeting Tupac and Biggie before their untimely deaths

by ROLLING STONE

In this excerpt from the “Yo Pac! Yo Biggie!” chapter of R. Kelly’s Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me, the R&B star describes meeting rap superstars Tupac and Biggie before their untimely deaths. As he reflects on the rappers’ murders, R. Kelly explores what fans look for in songs, bringing rap and R&B together, and what music means to him.

It was 1996; I had just left the lobby of the Hotel Nikko. (We called it the Hotel Negro because so many rappers and music business folk liked staying there.) I was standing out front, waiting for my ride to arrive, when I looked up and saw Tupac Shakur driving by in a bad-ass Bentley. He was alone, and I though to myself: “Man, this nigga got some balls to be rolling by himself like that.”

“Yo Pac!” I yelled at the top of my voice.
He made a U-turn and jumped out of the car.
“What up, baby?” he asked.
“Just wanted to holla at you,” I said. “Just had to tell you that I love everything you do.”
“Hey, man,” said Pac, “coming from you that’s a helluva compliment.”
“Lots of cats say rap and R&B live in different parts of the planet, but I don’t see it that way, Pac. I see us all coming together. You feel me?”
“Been feeling the same way. It’s all the same thing. Beats, words, stories.”
“Man, we need to do an album.”
“Would love it.”
“I’m talkin’ about a whole album. A whole concept. A big game-changing record.”
“You got it, Kells. Tell me what studio and when to be there.”
“Gonna send you some tracks,” I said.
“Don’t need no tracks. Just need to know you wanna work with me. That’s enough. We’ll just let it do what it do.”
“God is good.”
“All the time,” said Pac.
We hugged and Pac went on his way.

As the year went on, we made tentative plans to meet, but the plans got messed up when his schedule or mine suddenly changed. That didn’t change our hearts, though. Every time we talked, we talked about how this marriage of rap and R&B had to happen in a big way. We figured we were the two artists to pull it off. Pac understood that we came from the same ‘hood. We had mutual respect and mutual love. I’d go around saying, “No one is better at the rap game than Pac.” And Pac went around saying, “Kells is the most serious R&B thug out there.”

Come September, and it looked like my schedule was opening up just before the holidays. I set up a meeting with Pac for us to plot our strategy, get firm dates, and make the musical bomb that we both know would explode all around the world.

But another bomb exploded that no one saw coming.

I woke up on Sunday, September 8th, to the news that Pac had been shot in Vegas the Night before. He’d been rushed to the hospital. It didn’t look good.

Six days after the shooting, on Friday the 13th, Pac died.

I was numb from the news. Didn’t know what to say or what to do except praise God for giving him a gift that he gave to us – brilliant true-life stories, beautiful real-life poetry, words that will keep on living as long as there are eyes to read and ears to hear.

On many different singles, I was able to marry my music with rappers who understood the natural bond between us. Even though our approaches were different, we complemented each other. Put them together and you get the best of both worlds – a term that stayed in my mind when I decided to put together the master plan that got postponed after the death of Tupac.

I can never think of Tupac without thinking of Biggie. Because the very next year we lost another rap icon for whom I have the deepest respect.

Biggie was a lyrical genius, he was a musical painter with words. As he rapped, you would see the picture come to life as you heard his story. You hear a lot of rappers rap, you hear a lot of singers sing, but you don’t see the movie in your head the way you do when you hear Biggie rap. We related in that way because I’m into painting the picture and showing you the movie of what I’m singing about, so it was a natural thing for us to collaborate. Something would have been wrong with the Earth if we hadn’t done something together. When I got to Biggie’s studio in New York, Biggie was in the backroom messing around with his lyrics on the track; then he came out and showed me the first verse on “Fuck You Tonight.” While I was listening to his verse, I was already hearing the chorus in my head. I didn’t say anything and kept grooving to the track. And I had the chorus immediately.

Soon as I sang it: “You must be used to me spending and all the sweet wining and dining …” He stood up, he was tripping. “That’s it! That’s it right there.” He loved it, just as much as I loved his verse. There was such a mutual respect between us. I didn’t feel like I was working with just any rapper; I felt like I was working with someone who had a heart, someone who understood the significance of his own gift and of mine, and what it meant for them to merge together and for us to get together on the song. Biggie loved R&B music. He never felt that he was too tough for R&B.

As with all the other rappers I’ve worked with, Biggie and I shared common ground. Even though Biggie grew up in Brooklyn and I grew up in Chicago, we came from the same ‘hood. We knew the same characters. We’d been through a lot of the same shit.

One time we were on tour together and we were staying at the same hotel in Detroit. It was late and the after-party was over. The hotel-lobby party was over. The hotel-room party was over. There were still people hanging out in the lobby. And I was back in the lobby where they had this piano. I had just recalled that childhood dream with the cartoon characters chasing me. I remember the melody from that dream and was trying to figure out the rest of the lyrics, working on what would become “I Believe I Can Believe Fly.” Biggie and his crew came in the lobby about four in the morning.

“What’s up, baby! Great show, baby! What you doing?”

He came over to the piano, and I started to play it for him: “I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky . . .” but so far that’s all I had.

“I’m gonna tell you right now, B, that’s a smash. That’s a big hit right there. That’s a Grammy winner, Rob.”

When I was playing it for him, I was thinking – he’s a hardcore rapper; this is gonna be too soft for him – but when I got through and looked up, his face was wet with tears.

“My brother,” he said, “they gonna be playing that when you and I have moved on to the other side of time.”

I was blown completely away because here was one of the greatest in rap, recognizing a song that was about humanity, about uplifting people and feeling the power of the song that took me beyond Biggie the rapper or Biggie the writer. That connected me with Biggie the man. Biggie was the first person to hear me sing “I Believe I Can Fly.” That was a great moment.

The death of Biggie in 1997 hit me just as hard as Tupac’s death the year before. Another genius went down for reasons I never understood – and still don’t. Just a couple of months after he was killed, his album Life After Death dropped that included our collaboration on “Fuck You Tonight.” Biggie was among the first hardcore rappers to understand – as I did – that a club cut was different from a radio cut. Profanity had leaked from streets into rap, and then into R&B. We all got caught up in it. I didn’t mind singing a lyric like “I’m fucking you tonight” in a club jam. I thought it fit into that slot perfectly, and so did million of fans who bought the record.

After that collaboration, rapper after rapper came knocking at my door. And I was happy to open that door and let them in. I took it as a compliment that they thought I could contribute to their art form.

When Fat Joe, for example, came to see me in a studio in Miami, he came with deep respect. Thug as he was, street as he was, the man was all heart.

“Kells,” he said, “you got to write me a hit, Bro.”

“I’ll do my best, Joe.”

Fat Joe didn’t come alone. His posse must have been 20 deep, all hanging in the studio, watching and waiting for me to come up with a killer jam.

“Tell you what,” I said. “I do better when I work alone. Y’all take a walk or go to the beach. The ocean out here is really beautiful. Give me an hour, and I’ll come up with something.”
“No problem, Rob,” said Joe.
Half-hour later him and his boyz were back.
“Got something, Kells?”
“Matter of fact, Joe, I do.”
Played the track, sang the chorus, and Joe was all smiles.
“It’s a monster, baby,” he said.”
“I like it myself,” I said, as I kept singing the chorus:
We thuggin’, rollin’ on dubs . . . 

The jam, “We Thuggin’,” hit big in late 2001. Soon all the big-time rappers were coming around. Got to the point that a rap with a Kells chorus gave you even more street cred. Slick Rick, Doug E. Fresh, The Game, T.I., Elephant Man, Li’l Kim, Missy Elliott, Wyclef, Snoop, Twista, Do or Die, Young BloodZ, OJ Da Juiceman, Swizz Beatz, Chamillionaire, T-Pain, Ludacris, Huey, Kid Rock, Ja Rule, Big Tigger, Nelly, Äîwe all worked together. “Supaman High” and “Reaggae Bump Bump” and a slew of others became club classics. These songs became part of my identity.

Both as an artist and a businessman, I liked that identity. As an artist, I was working with other serious artists. As a businessman, I saw club tracks as a new franchise that could be profitable for years to come. It was like being in McDonald’s and realizing that even though cheeseburgers and fries sold big, you could also make money serving up McRibs, which are always available for a limited time only.

Beyond the fact that marrying rap and R&B made good artistic and business sense, the marriage was good for music lovers. It gave them what they were looking for.

What are music lovers looking for?

First thing is romance. Life can be boring. Romance is exciting. The thought that you might find real love is a beautiful thing. And if a song brings you that thought and helps you strengthen that hope, I say, Amen.

Music also needs to speak to your spirit, your inner core, that part of your soul that can get drowned by the drama of daily life. Don’t matter if it’s a romantic ballad or a hot sexy song, music – at least the kind of music I do – has got to get all over your soul.

And then there’s escape. Everyone needs escape. I need escape. Come Friday and Saturday, Kells is gonna party. You can’t have a party without music. I don’t care where you go around the world, you will see people – in Africa or England, in Jamaica or Japan – looking for a way to let off steam. During the week, we walk around all stiff and uptight. We have to watch every step we take and every word that comes out of our mouths. Come the weekend, we’re tired of holding it in. We got to let it out. We need release. We need relief. We need the club and all the good feelings that the club brings.

Being up in the club, in the VIP with the greatest rappers who ever rocked a mic, made me proud. Made me feel like I was living right where my people were living. Like I said in my first album, my career was born in the Nineties. I wanted to be part of my times. And it was – and remains – a great blessing that I could swing back and forth between two cultures. Maybe I could even contribute to a conversation between those two cultures.

When it came to music, there was no shame in my game. I’m at my best when I am wanted, and whoever reaches out to me is going to get my best.

Bring on the rappers, baby. Let me keep dreaming that big dream where R&B and rap share the biggest stage in the world. Where R&B and rap go on the biggest tour in history.

That dream was deep in my soul.

It was going to happen. It had to.

Excerpted from the book Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me by R. Kelly with permission from SmileyBooks, out June 28th. R. Kelly’s most recent album, Write Me Back, is out today.