I am still non the wiser in the whole "Is R Kelly a genius or just crazy" debate, but what I can tell you after tonight is that he puts on one hell of a show.

Firstly i have to admit that I stopped paying much attention to R Kelly probably just after I left school. 12 Play was and still is a favourite album of mine, but when he started comparing women to jeeps, I thought that perhaps it was time to find another r'n'b path. Never did, I am mostly a hip hop lover though I do like my slow jams once in a while.

And so the story goes, Laurie and I were sitting down watching BET when the ad came up for the tour featuring Kells, Ne-Yo, Keyshai Cole, and J Holliday (a newcomer from the DMV (DC, Maryland and Virginia area - took me a while to get that)). Great line up apparently so I suggested we check to see if there were still tickets, there were, so we got some. Almost immediately we heard that R Kelly had kicked Ne-Yo off the tour as Ne-Yo's performances were apparently outdoing the self proclaimed king of RnB. Big disappointment as that is the performance Laurie wanted to see, and guess what? NO REFUNDS!! So we went.

The concert actually started early, with the venue (the Verizon Centre) only a fifth filled, but J Holliday came in and did his thing, which was fine i guess, but playing to a quasi empty theatre is hard work. After a short pause Keyshia Cole appeared and did her thing, more crowd, still not enough. There was something missing. She does have a good voice, but nothing compared to Mary J Blige, and not really soulful enough to be in Jill Scott or Angie Stone standards, but she is making her money so who cares really?

Miss Cole left the stage (she has her own reality TV show on BET by the way) and for 45 minutes we waited for the main man to turn up. As we sat there listening to the music over the speakers, it dawned on me that we were about to listen to the same man who just produced a crazy RnB soap opera. Oh dear, please please please no "Trapped in the Closet" stuff today.

Kells made a dramatic and over the top appearance, one obviously befitting of his giant ego, and also perhaps putting the word out to those out to get him (court appearance due shortly), that he is still fighting. As the bass reverberated around the centre, there were pictures up on the monitor showing R Kelly dressed as a boxer, getting ready for a crucial bout. While we were distracted by the two ladies on the stage/ring, R Kelly entered from the front, surrounded by his entourage, and together the headed up to the stage.

Two things:

One - He is rather short
Two - For a short man, he has a really great voice

As we all know, R Kelly has made a lot of hit records, and as corny as they may be, people obviously love them for he went home in a Mercedes CL 55, and i took the metro. However, the start of the show was rather annoying. R Kelly, suffering either from some sort of amnesia or from ADD, could not manage to go through an entire song. Just as he was getting into Home Alone, he would stop, ask the crowd something and then flip to a new hit. My main worry at this time was the maybe he was just going to play the entire concert like this, do 45 minutes and then go to the after party. His medication eventually kicked in and I could not have been more wrong about what was to come.

He gave us 2 full hours and I am sure that he could have gone on all night. Newer tracks such as Hotel, T-Pain's "I'm in love with a stripper", I'm a Flirt went down a treat, but what made the night was hearing the old favourites "bump and grind" and his extended adlib of "Your body's calling". With a back catalogue like his, choosing songs must be very difficult, yet he manage to have the perfect balance between the old and new. For me that was excellent since I am not really in tune with his newer records.

The sound quality was excellent and you could hear his voice clearly over the thumping bass. What he also had is abundance was a great level of theatre. There were phone calls, tribal dances, and a slightly out of sync scene with him conducting a light show while wearing an all white morning suit with red and white shirt and tie (Yeah I know, but at least he tried something different).

Lyrically for me, R Kelly has floated in between genius and smut, but as much as I want to sit on my high horse and call it naff, I have to admit that it works. The ladies absolutely loved it. And they are pretty much his target audience. Whether he is talking about women being fed up or how he wants to "lick it.... and put his whole head in it" they chicks just love them some R Kelly. And for us men, we get the odd club hit. The thing is though, if you don't like the lyrics, you can still laugh and admire his audacity.

R Kelly is a star, court case or not, he is a star. And whether or not one thinks he is verging on craziness with his "Trapped in the Closet" series, Kells knows what he is worth, but far from being a super ego, his stage presence is immense, drawing in the audience and involving them in a way that gives them a truly unique insight into one of the greatest RnB performers of today.

If you get a chance to see him... do so.