One of the best selling artists of today

R. Kelly is an extremely prolific artist - this is undeniable. People can say a lot of revealing things about him but the core remains the same: he is one of the most influential performers and producers in the world of R&B. He is always doing something - collaborates, makes side projects, writes songs for other artists and records his own albums of course. It is quite normal for him to release one disk a year. Well, yes there are more prolonged gaps between official studio releases but if we sum up everything he has done in a new millennium only the result will be like 7 or 8 full-fledged albums and for all that don't forget that he is also one of the biggest selling artists of 90's. So, after a pretty successful disc TP.3 Reloaded R. Kelly returns with his new potentially platinum disc Double Up on which he delivers another portion of pure signature R&B laced with hip-hop groove. R. Kelly sticks to the same sexual content and club heat atmosphere that many of his previous records included. At a first glance it may seem that he offers nothing really new but in reality this album caries a good share of novelty.

R. Kelly works with a big number of famous rappers

The album is realized in the popular R&B style of the recent years. A share of hip-hop influence increases, beat grows more staccato, deep and less straightforward and vocal tunes boarder recitative quite frequently. In fact, R. Kelly works with a pretty big number of famous rappers. He explains that the success of his recent collaborations with Young Jeezy and Ludacris made him think about using the same approach on his own songs. The list of guest stars is quite impressive: Ludacris, Rick Ross, T.I., Usher, Snoop Doggy Dogg are all here, yet the list is far longer. The album's leading single is track called I'm A Flirt (Remix). The song was originally released on Bow Wow's album The Prince Of Fame in the last year as a bonus track; nevertheless Bow Wow himself has nothing to do with the song's version represented here. This is a hot mid tempo piece, which will perfectly fit the nightclub parties. The second single is Same Girl. The song is realized in the approximately same vein, it is a little bit calmer and the emphasis here was laid on the melody. The R. Kelly-Usher duo sounds just perfect; this is that very case when you can hardly say which of two artists leads the song.

Double Up offers a huge multitude of good tracks

The album includes R. Kelly's latest single Rise Up, which is dedicated to the victims of school shooting in Virginia. The song doesn't sound that characteristic for this album, but it brings a great spirit of R&B balladry and somehow reminds about his early hits. Overall Double Up is a pretty diverse album. Aside from its singles there is a huge multitude of great tracks. Such songs as Double Up or Rollin are the best representatives of what R. Kelly is doing today; these are perfect R&B/hip-hop mixtures, addictive and woozy. However, R. Kelly doesn't forget about his roots, he dwells on more traditional R&B sufficiently often. The Zoo, Best Friends are good songs indeed, these ones could perfectly fit any of R. Kelly's recent albums. Double Up is a definitely step forward for R. Kelly, it can't be called an experimental album but many things are represented with a new flavor. He was always famous for his talent in expressing his sexuality in songs, no matter is it a dance hit or a more conventional R&B but here this ardent atmosphere gained some new features. The album has its missteps, of course, but they are actually few in number, the achievements prevail.

01.06.2007