About an hour plus after the movie was scheduled to start, RK walks to the mic stand in front of the silver screen for a few words to the audience. "Don't ask me I can't explain it, it just keeps rhymin and rhymin and rhymin and rhymin and rhymin and rhyming (plus a few more "rhymins") That's R. Kelly explaining to the audience the process behind his funny-ass gripping, high drama."They were looking at me like I was crazy", he said proudly, then he delivers the straight charming indictment of the suits: "So I'd like to ask the head of Jive Records to stand up, quipping further "You gotta thank the money I the room."As for when the series will end, Kelly explained that it was like aliens visiting earth that would leave the planet when their work was done, reminding us that he has some fifty plus additional installments, and again he tells the suits that shit ain't cheap, but there's never been anything like this beforeBut the truth is hat there have been things like this before, -- which doesn't make this any less fresh nor relevant -- and he's part of a long tradition of smart blacktivist theatre and film, whether anybody's ever said that before or not. And he's as funny as some comedians on cable. If you've never seen TITC, it's a series of vignettes in which a loose social circle of a pastor, a pimp, a pusher and plain ole gossipy folk, begins to draw tighter as secret affairs are revealed, degrees of separation enter single digits and a collision course seems set. In the film's opening which brings us up to speed on the prior installments (1 -- 12), each time the plot thickens RK appears in a white suite crooning "Oh Shit" like a Greek chorus -- this is it's fuckin' classic, dark and real comedy, and R. Kelly play multiple roles as well as Eddie or Tyler. Deliver this in iambic pentameter and a generation of mislabeled "post-literate" kids would be down with Shakespeare in a heartbeat.This episode:Guy out of jail goes to smoke his girl who he thinks dimed him out. She didn't, her lesbian lover did (Oh Shit)She's also pregnant (Oh Shit)Pastor gets a call from his gay lover while the janitor listens in the closet and his wife barges in on him and speakerphone blows his cover (Oh Shit)Somebody got pregnant by a midget (Oh Shit)Pastor learns from his male lover that he's in the hospital and the specter of AIDs hangs (Oh Shit, Oh Shit)A few lines we remembered:Celfone conversation: "Do I look like en Vogue?""No, why?" "'Cause you got me on hold"In a self-deprecating moment, one of Kelly's characters says to two lesbians at which he has a gun pointed and who've just confessed to being lovers with a sumptuous kiss -- y'all lucky I' like that shit. FYI, the word "nigga" is alive and well.Only mean laugh of the night: A woman with a nervous twitch she got from a pimp who'd beaten her. Just not funny. But the representing of circle socials ala Brady Bunch but with condom rings bubbling each character was straight sublime. R Kelly is a 21st century Kurt Weill. And he may have invented a new genre: the popera (pop opera)Michael VazquezThanks R Kelly, for being crazier than a fish with titties and for the free Jack Daniels the mini cheeseburgers and the tuna tartar. Extra special thanks to the cats who gave me and my girl two XXXXL Double Up t-shirts which we wore together at home later. I'm looking forward to hearing that 13 year old female rapper from Harlem you were telling me about. Also cool to end up sitting next to Kerry Black, one of the folks behind my favorite music festival, Bonnaroo.

Video providers : , and this video is stored with all copyright by