I feared we’d never get to hear it…
[Video][Website]
[4.18]
W.B. Swygart: For all his magnificent idiosyncracies, R. Kelly can be a bit boring sometimes. No matter how adorably affronted he sounds in the chorus, this is one of those times, as he rebuffs those who would suggest he has neither made money nor slept with women, while whoever made the beat decides to answer the question, “What does it sound like when The-Dream microwaves some sweet and sour chicken?” (2 Chainz’s verse is the bit where Terius peels back the plastic covering the chicken, then stirs it, then re-covers and heats for a further two minutes.)
[4]
Alfred Soto: OK, brah, no one says a song is a deposition.
[3]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Have you listened to “Only the Loot Can Make Me Happy” lately? It’s still great, of course — Kelly nimbly raps about going from free church lunches to Lorenzo tires. “My Story” is similarly pitched, except now the man has gone from no money to “sleeping in Versace shirts”, and there are things other than money that interest him. Unsurprisingly, it’s sex (“she make a pole disappear like ho-CUS po-CUS!“), God (“thank God I’m winning”) and a combination of sex’n’God (an extended phallic metaphor about having his Jesus piece admired by an attractive church girl). This is regular Kellz territory but the man, as always, performs it to the hilt, making his rags-to-riches story seem as vital as ever. The extended version — where he talks about putting his dick in life and reminds us that upcoming LP Black Panties is on its way like “constipation” — may be even better. A bonus 2 Chainz verse finds him continuing his puppy-dog streak from “We Own It” and “Having Sex” alongside the regular dad-quality sex jokes: “You know who you is, girl / we been fuckin’ since the twelfth grade / goddamn.”
[8]
Anthony Easton: For someone so brilliant at constructing both choruses and narratives, the last bit of this, with its endless repetition of a not very clever chorus, suggests that he’s punching way below his weight class. Yes, I am not talking about 2 Chainz on purpose.
[4]
Daisy Le Merrer: R. Kelly sounds more like someone stuck with this story than someone proudly sticking to it. His performance is pretty unconvincing already, but echoes and reverb are usually signifiers of loneliness rather than the incredible heights Kells may be trying to evoke. This could actually be a good “lonely at the top” type of concept, but “My Story” just doesn’t work on any level.
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: For someone who normally tells stories with sparks flying everywhere, this is turgid and baffling. Point deducted for “I’m not crazy, but my talent got bipolar” because for fuck’s sake.
[2]
Brad Shoup: The difference in quality between the #Django joke and the gate code crack is immense. You want to talk bipolar, Kells, start there. I dunno if the “crazy” charge he dismisses comes from his community or the johnnies-come-lately of Indieland, but I do marvel at the gall in using a trial as framework. The defensiveness is of a piece with the tight-assed track, which pairs his staccato yips with a sort of Brit-grunge resonant downstrum. Thank God for 2 Chainz’s more basic needs, and the decision to have him split the track in two.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: I keep waiting for the moment when R. Kelly will show his age, misapprehend youth culture, drift into solipsism and irrelevance. It hasn’t happened yet; here he matches the Futuristic mood of hip-hop R&B in 2013 with so much reasonable grace that even 2 Chainz doesn’t come off as a hapless partycrasher. Sure, Kells is old enough to be Chief Keef’s grandfather; but he’s taken the temperature of a post-Keef Chicago and knows how to seduce her.
[7]
David Lee: R. Kelly aims for Future’s cadence and croak but instead sounds like a cricket drowning in that molasses beat. Which isn’t as catastrophic as it sounds, unfortunately.
[3]
Crystal Leww: This is a tad underwhelming, if only because he played 38 songs at Pitchfork that were all better than this one. I like that he’s still repping Chicago. I like that 2 Chainz is calling back 12 Play. It’s all just a tad boring.
[4]
Mallory O’Donnell: I really thought “Pour It Up” was the sine qua non of lazy materialist claptrap tracks, but this phoned-in bullshit might just have it beat. I can’t be sure, though, because I fell the fuck asleep halfway through. Snare rolls, autotune, casual cussin’, talkin’ ’bout how you come up from nothing, fuck I’m falling asleep again just writin’ this blurb.
[3]