Soulacoaster Read online

  Copyright © 2011 by Robert Sylvester Kelly

  Published in the United States by: SmileyBooks, 250 Park Avenue South, Suite #201, New York, NY 10003 • www.SmileyBooks.com

  Photo credits are an extension of the copyright page.

  Music credits an extension of the copyright page.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher.

  The opinions set forth herein are those of the authors, and do not necessarily express the views of the publisher or any of its affiliates.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2011935631

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-2835-3

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-4019-3177-3

  15 14 13 12 4 3 2 1

  First Edition, June 2012

  Printed in China by Global PSD

  DESIGN BY JUAN ROBERTS / CREATIVE LUNACY

  I dedicate this book of my mother,

  Joann Kelly,

  and

  my second mom, teacher, and pastor,

  Lena McLin.

  CONTENTS

  ACT I: BACK IN THE DAY

  The Music Is Swarming

  Mom

  Lulu

  The Dream

  Coffee with Three Creams and Six Sugars

  Women in the House

  Sunday Morning

  School Days

  Secrets

  Devotion

  Mr. Blue

  Jump Shot

  Hope

  Until You Just Can’t Boogie No More

  Willie Pearl

  Hooping Ahead

  Room 126

  Ribbon in the Sky

  In the Basement

  ACT II: GETTIN’ BUSY

  Easy

  Neice

  The Chitlin Bucket

  Don’t Look Back

  Never Enough

  Abducted By My Gift

  Shooting Stars

  Stars

  Big Break

  Amazing Grace

  Public Announcement

  “You’re My Girl”

  “Don’t Give Me Some Kid Off The Street Give Me the President!”

  12-Play

  The Makings of Me

  “She’s Teaching Angels How to Love”

  The Depths of My Struggles

  MJ

  Trade In My Life

  God & Music

  Drea

  Flying

  “Yo Pac! Yo Biggie!”

  Semi-Pro

  Angel

  Contagious

  World’s Greatest

  R&B Thug

  ACT III: IN THE RING

  The Storm

  Welcome to the Chocolate Factory

  Best of Both Worlds

  Happy

  Juicy Tuesday

  Trapped

  The Breakup

  Still Waiting

  Trial

  Victory

  Hands Across the World

  Love Letter

  Dominoes Up

  Acknowledgments

  Discography

  Music Credits

  Photo Credits

  About the Authors

  Author’s Note

  Soulacoaster is a memoir. I have shared the most challenging times of my life in this diary, but in telling my story, certain episodes could not be included for complicated reasons. Additionally, to protect the privacy of others, specific names and identifying characteristics have been changed. Events and conversations have been recreated from my memory and reconstructed to the best of my recollection. I hope you enjoy the ride.

  Look behind myself as I reflect on all the memories

  Good times they come and go

  Lost everything from friends to family

  If I could turn back the hands

  There would be some things I’d change about me

  I know that my past is not what my future holds

  Where I come from who could

  believe all the pain and misery

  Look in my eyes and you will see . . .

  The diary of me

  Rewind my life, just go back and correct all the wrong

  And ask God to direct my path so then I could make it home

  Years ago a child was born and raised without a man

  My mom was scorned but still reached out her hand

  Just open the book, turn the pages of my life

  and you will read

  A true story about one man’s journey . . .

  The diary of me

  —R. Kelly

  Before you go on this Soulacoaster with me, there is one thing I gotta say:

  No matter what speed it goes, how high it soars, or how low it drops—hold on.

  THE MUSIC IS SWARMING

  Since the day of my birth, I feel like my soul has been on some kind of roller coaster—with all of the ups and downs, twists and turns, laughing and screaming, smiling and crying. Sometimes I ask myself, When will this ride stop? Or will it ever stop?

  Before you go on this Soulacoaster with me, though, there is one thing I have to say: No matter what speed it goes, how high it soars, or how low it drops—hold on. Even as I worked on this book, the music was swarming—pushing, inspiring, and challenging me. And I let it; I always accept the challenge. From my earliest memories to last night’s recording session, music has been my life’s mission and my greatest passion. I feel like God has placed a lifetime of melodies inside me and that’s a wonderful thing, but unfortunately a great gift can come with a great price and a helluva responsibility. I call my gift a beautiful disease.

  When I’m working on one song, it seems like I’m always interrupted by another song that’s knocking—sometimes banging—at the door of my soul. There are times I feel like a radio station with all the channels blasting at once. I often get smothered by songs and lyrics, smothered by ideas about musical pieces and how they mix and match. They’re like jigsaw puzzles. As soon as I put one together, I’m on to the next. My mind is always moving fast and furious; it won’t let me rest until all the pieces of the song fit together.

  When I was a kid, I found out that I couldn’t read or write like other kids. I would worry myself sick that something was wrong with me and that my disability would trap me. When the music started flowing through me, at first I was overwhelmed and worried. Why was I hearing so many songs? Musical phrasings, lyrics, and song structures were fully formed in my head long before I could understand what these things really were. Even when somebody said that I had a special gift, as a little kid I was scared that it would drive me crazy.

  It took me a lot of time, effort, energy—and a lot of God’s grace—to learn to recognize the gift for what it was and harness it, even as I struggled in other ways. I’ve got a leash on my music now and I can walk it. It’s not running wild anymore—I can walk it wherever I want it to go.

  This book is like my music: It’s not just stray melodies. It comes to me late at night—certain scenes, voices, and memories appear unexpectedly—things that made me proud and things that are still hard for me to even think about.

  My life is like a mansion with lots of rooms. Some of those rooms are well lit, with bright, joyfully colored party lights and full of happiness. Other rooms are dark. And some of the doors to those rooms have never even been cracked open. Well now, I’m opening those doors. And I’m inviting you in.

  MOM

  When I call out Mom, it brings the spirit of Joann Kelly into my heart. I’m calling out Mom at the beg
inning of this book because, as I go through the pages of my life and start to wake up the images and feelings of my past, I need to invoke her here in the present. I need the spirit of my mother by my side. She’s still my guide and my strength. She was the first one to believe in me. She told me that I could achieve all things through Christ Jesus.

  At 45, I can still hear her words, and they’re just as comforting now as ever. It was she who taught me to believe I could fly beyond the sky and soar into pure space. No matter what we were going through, no matter how small our Thanksgiving table, my mother’s inspiring strength kept our hearts full, even if our bellies were sometimes empty. She was strong in her faith, too—something I carry with me to this day. She taught us how to be thankful. Didn’t matter if this neighbor or that neighbor had more than we did. Whatever we had was reason to thank the Lord. Financially, we had nothing. Spiritually, we had everything.

  The reason I loved my mother so much is: she was not perfect and she never claimed to be. But I loved her because she was my mother. She had her bad habits. She loved her Winston cigarettes and her Miller beer. Sometimes she’d drink too much and get sick. My mother wasn’t ashamed to talk about her imperfections. She’d discuss her faults, telling me how she wanted to stop drinking and smoking like she did. My mother was a praying woman who looked to God for a better way. Above all, she was a loving woman who protected her four children with the strength of a lioness.

  My mother was my daddy, too, so to speak, because she raised me on her own. Her husband, Lucious, became my stepfather, but—no disrespect to him—he was not my real father. As a kid, when I first understood that my father left my mother when she was pregnant with me, I wasn’t really upset about it. But it hurt. Thankfully, I had someone who was a genius at being a mother and a father, too.

  Though I’d never met or seen my father, on special occasions like Christmas and birthdays, my siblings’ fathers would come by and take them shopping for toys and clothes. I never got jealous, but I do remember being sad and curious. In fact, one day when I was about 11 or 12, I decided to ask my mom questions about my father, like: “Who is he?” “Where is he?” and “Why doesn’t he come to take me out for my birthday or bring me anything for Christmas?” My mother would just roll her eyes, look away from me, and say: “Don’t say nothing to me about that no-good son of a bitch because the minute he found out I was pregnant with you, his coward ass left. Disappeared in the wind,” she’d say. “Didn’t want to have nothing to do with either you or me.”

  I remember my mother’s eyes on one of those days—close to blood red as the anger grew and grew while she talked about my father as if he was the Devil himself. I remember my eyes getting baby-blood red, too, because what my mother loved, I loved, and what she hated, I hated. It was that day, that moment, that I decided to hate my father, not knowing really what hate meant or having a clear understanding about love. She told me on that day to never mention him again.

  “I’m your mother and your father,” she said. I promised her that I’d never talk about him again. And I never did. I remember taking the word father and putting it in a little brick box in the back of my mind—until now.

  My mother was a woman of strength, love, and courage. She always felt like what we didn’t have God gave to us. “Whatever you ain’t got, God gave to you so count it all as joy,” she would say.

  Now most people won’t believe this because I’m talking about my mother, but Mama Joann could sing her butt off. People said she sounded like Gladys Knight and Aretha Franklin mixed together. Every time she’d open her mouth to sing—whether it was in church, in a club, or outside on the porch—I would watch the people to get their reactions.

  My mother is the reason why I fell in love with old-school music. To this day, the closer I stay to the real soul of music, the closer I am to the spirit of my mother. To me, she is the soul of music.

  I was five years old in 1972 and already music was all over me. Music was my mother and my mother was music. When she was out of the house, I was never quite right. When she came home, I felt safe. My mother was my comfort zone. All I wanted was to live in the music with her. The first time Mom let me go with her to hear her sing, my heart started hammering so hard. I thought that I was straight-up on my way to heaven.

  It was one of those sweet summer nights in Chicago, when the breeze comes off Lake Michigan and everyone wants to go outside and enjoy it. I was holding my mother’s hand, walking down the street to the nightclub where she and her band, the Six Pack, were going to play. My mother had grown up with music in the house—my grandfather was a musician who played blues guitar and used to do gigs playing B. B. King numbers. As we passed the original Regal Theater, Mom ignited my imagination with stories of legendary black artists who had once played on that stage—Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, The Supremes, the Temptations, B. B. King, James Brown, and even “Little” Stevie Wonder.

  “Al Green’s at the Regal tonight,” Mom said. Chicago’s South Side in the early ’70s was music in motion, bursting with our Southern blues roots and deep urban rhythms just like us. And among Chicago folk, no one was bigger than Al Green. “Let’s Stay Together,” “Love and Happiness,” and “I’m Still in Love with You” were everyone’s favorite jams.

  “I’d love to hear Al,” my mother said as she looked up at his picture. “But I got some singing of my own to do. Got my own show to put on.”

  Outside the little lounge where Mom was going to perform, she turned me over to the drummer in her band—a big man with a big laugh and a wide smile. The club wasn’t having a five-year-old walk through its front door, but my mother knew they weren’t watching the back. Before I knew it, her drummer had scooped me up, hid me in his drum case, and carried me inside.

  As the band started to play, I opened the lid to steal a peep. My eyes went wide; I was amazed: clouds of smoke, swells of laughter, women’s sweet perfumes, the strong smell of cigars, the stink of whiskey—I knew that something big, something exciting, was about to happen.

  She smashed the night!

  Smashed the crowd!

  Smashed the song!

  Everything about the place thrilled my soul. The jukebox was playing Marvin Gaye as I waited on my mother to come out. She was in the back room, getting ready like always, smoking a Winston and drinking a Miller. She was taking her time. The longer the folks waited, the more she knew they’d want her to come out and sing.

  Finally Mom appeared. She was wearing her only stage outfit, a silky black dress with gold sparkles up and down the sleeves. She was a heavyset woman; flawless brown skin, brown eyes, thick eyebrows. She looked beautiful. She was beautiful. She made her way to the front of the band. No stage, no curtains, no introduction. Just her stepping up to the mic. Strong as she could be. And when the band kicked in and she let that first note go—I still get goose bumps just thinking about it!

  She smashed the night!

  Smashed the crowd!

  Smashed the song!

  First song she belted out was an Aretha Franklin number, singing “Don’t send me no doctor, filling me up with all those pills … got me a man named Dr. Feelgood … and Lord, he takes care of all my pains and ills.”

  Me, I had no pains or ills. I had me a mother who could sing. She didn’t dance, didn’t wave her arms, or do any tricks. She didn’t have to: Miss Joann Kelly was a stand-up, straight-up soul singer.

  Peeping out of that drum case, I saw how the people loved her. She took that “Midnight Train to Georgia” leaving the Pips behind. My mother didn’t need no Pips. She had enough voice for four singers. She was tearing the roof off that little club, and me, well, I was cherishing every minute. The joy of music was the joy of my mother. As far as I could tell, Mom ruled the world.

  LULU

  I love Love. There’s no one on Earth more romantic than me. I’ve been in love with Love ever since I can remember. I’ve always loved the idea of having a girlfriend. I love the closeness, the swe
etness; holding her hand, kissing her cheek, whispering words of affection and hearing her say that she feels the same about me.

  My first girlfriend was named Lulu, and she was so special. Though we were only eight, and it was puppy love, I believe she was my first musical inspiration when it comes to love songs. I can still smell the fragrance of our innocence. Lulu and I had a very special bond that—even at our young age—felt futuristic. Ours was that kind of bond that young people talk about when they say they’re gonna grow up and get married and just be together forever. And though it sounds much like a fairy tale, it’s what me and Lulu believed in our hearts, and nobody could tell us anything different.

  Sometimes, Lulu and I would play house. We built a make-believe house out of a big cardboard box that we put in the backyard. We cut out openings for windows and hung fresh paper towels to look like curtains. We took crayons and drew little decorations on the walls. We got a towel to look like a rug and placed it on the ground. We did everything we could to make it pretty.

  Inside the cardboard house, we had a make-believe kitchen where Lulu served me a make-believe lunch. We sat on the towel and drank make-believe coffee, just like our mothers did. We just sat there and looked at each other. Lulu had light brown eyes and a smile that made me smile. In our make-believe dream house, Lulu and I made a vow to be girlfriend and boyfriend forever.

  “Let’s take a walk, Rob,” Lulu said to me one day.

  It had rained earlier, but the sun finally came out and walking sounded good. We left my backyard, hand in hand. Little eight-year-old me was floating on love.

  Across the street, on Concord Drive, sat Beacon Hill Elementary School. A wire fence had been built to keep kids away from Thorn Creek, which rushed like a river between Beacon Boulevard and the railway line.