Subject: R. Kelly

• Wait a minute ...

  May 2, 2007

• Win Butler with the Swish!!

  July 26, 2007

• The Return of "Trapped in the Closet"

  August 21, 2007

• Reverberations: Born Liars, Ugly Beats and Fleshtones at Rudyard’s

  April 1, 2008

• Five Spot: Jack White, The Edge, Jimmy Page and the Mediocrity of Your Life

  September 19, 2008

• Playbill

  Coming This Week

  September 23, 1999

• Fat Joe

  All or Nothing

  July 14, 2005

• Turning the Screw: G.R.I.T. Boys, Scarface, Lil Wayne, The Kanye, Jay-Z, Shawty Lo, Superhead, Serius Jones and More

  Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week: G.R.I.T. Boys, "One Night Stand" Wire To Wire Scarface's latest - and, apparently, last - album, Emeritus, is out tomorrow. Buy it, and buy it hard. Weezy just announced that he'll be in town December 18 at Toyota Center, with Keyshia Cole, Gym Class Heroes and Keri Hilson. If you haven't

  December 1, 2008

• Bill-bored

  December 15, 1994

• The Country Soul of R. Kelly's "Feelin' on Yo Booty"

  The Gourds didn't invent the idea of a ragtag roots-rock band spicing up its set with hip-hop and R&B covers, but thanks to their cover of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice" (endorsed by the Doggfather himself), everybody probably thinks they did. But Gourds co-frontman Kevin Russell, playing as solo alter ego Shinyribs, managed to outdo even "Gin and Juice" Wednesday night at the Volcano. Although his excellent hour-plus set included other standouts like "Shreveport" from the Gour

  January 16, 2009

• Sex Sells

  May 2, 1996

• Sound Check

  July 31, 1997

• Turning the Screw: G.R.I.T Boys, Coolio, Nas, Eminem, Tupac, Lil' Kim, Chris Brown, R. Kelly, Snoop Dogg, Scarface and More

  Welcome back to Turning the Screw, Rocks Off's weekly rap post. It probably won't rhyme, at least most of the time. E-mail tips to introducingliston@gmail.com. Thanks, homies. Single of the Week "I'm Fresh," G.R.I.T. Boys ft. Trae and Tum Tum Wire to Wire Brooklyn's Uncle Murda was convicted of ID fraud. Said the airport employee who figured out the ID Murda presented was not his own, "I don't know why he did that. I mean, I've never even heard of the guy.His own ID would've been a good en

  March 9, 2009

• Superflies

  July 1, 1999

• T.I.: Paper Trail

  November 27, 2008

• Raheem DeVaughn

  Love Behind the Melody

  February 14, 2008

• Billion Dollar Babies

  Rappers and their ten-figure dreams

  January 31, 2008

• The-Dream

  Love Hate

  January 17, 2008

• R. Kelly, Double Up

  Welcome to R. Kelly's sex planet

  November 29, 2007

• Closet Case

  August 30, 2007

• T.I., Yung Joc, Ciara, T-Pain, Lloyd

  Screamfest hollas 8 p.m. Saturday, August 4, at Toyota Center, 1510 Polk. 713-627-9622.

  August 2, 2007

• Get Your Spankin'

  April 20, 2006

• R. Kelly's Artistic Process

  A look inside his musical mind

  June 28, 2007

• Odd Couples

  Strange musical pairings

  June 14, 2007

• Wheels on the Bus

  HISD's version of "neighborhood input"

  March 30, 2006

• Mama Mia

  Our blushing Nightfly takes his Catholic mom to see R. Kelly

  March 23, 2006

• Feel This Man

  If you think R. Kelly is anything less than the greatest recording artist alive, you're wrong!

  March 9, 2006

• They Did What?

  The top WTF moments of 2005

  December 8, 2005

• I'd Much Rather Be with the Girls

  Critics might damn Fantasia's music with faint praise, but we say she's keeping up a sacred pop tradition

  November 24, 2005

• Our top DVD picks for the week of November 1

  November 3, 2005

• The Killers vs. the Killers

  How do these pretty boys stack up against some real dealers of death?

  August 18, 2005

• No More Drama

  R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" sputters to a disappointing close

  June 30, 2005

• Where's the Beef? Right here in H-town

  T.I. and Lil' Flip rumble in Cloverland, bringing one of the great rap feuds of recent years to a head

  April 7, 2005

• R. Kelly

  Happy People/U Saved Me (Jive)

  September 9, 2004

• A Fan's Notes

  Ideas that were forgotten but not gone in 2003

  December 18, 2003

• The Spirit of the Scabs

  Houstonians the Handsomes get the booties shaking Austin-style

  December 18, 2003

• Bacharach Meets Isley

  Here I Am (DreamWorks)

  December 11, 2003

• Letters

  November 27, 2003

• Letters

  November 13, 2003

• O.J. All Over Again

  Charm trumps evidence with accused pedophile R. Kelly

  October 23, 2003

• Who R. You?

  The enigma that is R. Kelly keeps audiences enthralled, guessing

  May 27, 1999

• MP3 of the Day: You(genious)'s Sticky-Sweet "Sex on a Spoon"

  You(genious) (left) and DJ Good Grief​ Hello, ladies. Come on in. Allow Rocks Off to take your coats. What's that? It's August? You don't have any coats? No matter. Would you care for a glass of wine? Perhaps some Hennessy? Help yourself to this plate of fine cheeses, please. Half off at Spec's, you know. Here, step into the study. Have a seat. No, no, not over there. Come over here to this leather sofa. It's oversized, so there's room enough for all of us. Rocks Off has a new jam to play for

  August 12, 2009

• A Third Ward Pawnshop iPod and the Mysterious Fate of Previous Owner "Scooby"

  Whoever he is (was?), Scooby's iPod wasn't short on R. Kelly.​So a couple of weeks ago, after three or four years of increasingly faltering service, Rocks Off's 30 GB iPod finally died. Completely. Out of sheer broke-assedness, we had held on to it for longer than most. By the end, its quirks and shenanigans were endless, not least its inability to hold a charge whether or not it was actually turned on, so perhaps it was something other than foolishness that impelled us to wear it out in the r

  August 26, 2009

• Cleanse Your Dirty, Dirty Soul With the Blind Boys of Alabama at House of Blues

  Ladies and gentlemen, Rocks Off doesn't mind telling you he feels a little dirty after editing that last Britney Spears post. We swear, we ourselves have never, ever rubbed one out to the cover art of Oops... I Did It Again - we just wish we knew why we always have such a hard time getting the damn CD case to open. We have some serious atoning to do, and we haven't even gotten around to posting our slideshow of penis album covers or our list of upcoming singles even more inappropriate than note

  September 11, 2009

• Songs Slightly Less Inappropriate Than R. Kelly's Latest Single, "Number One"

  So R. Kelly's newest single is called "Number One." Seriously? Okay, we know Kelly was found innocent of all child-related golden-shower charges by a jury of 12 idiots, but when the subject of Dave Chappelle's "(I Wanna) Piss On You" releases a single called "Number One"... sorry, but we have to believe he is now simply taunting us. We taxed our brains to their very limits, and we were able to think of ten (as-yet) fictional songs that would be only slightly less appropriate. Have a look - you

  September 15, 2009

• Piss Up a Rope: Songs R. Kelly Probably Won't Sing In Concert Friday, but Should

  ​Get out your towels: R. Kelly is coming to town. The singer would be best known as "that guy who sang that song in the Michael Jordan/Bugs Bunny movie" if not for the allegations in 2002 that he engaged in sex with an underage girl. Kelly was found not guilty of child porn charges last year, but thanks to file-sharing sites and Dave Chappelle, he's now forever destined to be remembered as "that guy who [allegedly] pissed on a 14-year-old." Kelly's "Ladies Make Some Noise!" tour, with special

  October 27, 2009

• Heckler's Delight: R. Kelly at Reliant Arena

  Sorry, we couldn't resist...​King of R&B. Ghostwriter supreme. Pop genius. Unabashed sex fiend. Bump 'n' grind horndog. Acquited pedophile. Ultimately, history will decide whether or not R. Kelly deserves some, all, or any of these labels, but here are two facts that aren't in dispute: 1) the guy has written and produced some of the sauciest, raunchiest, funniest songs in recent memory, and 2) that June's The Demo Tape mixtape - Kells' first - was an unforgivable piece of garbage. Since do

  October 30, 2009

• Aftermath: Even If You Couldn't Get In, R. Kelly Was Still Kinda Fun

  Photos by Brittanie SheyFYI, the sign says "Enjoy the show." Assuming you could get in...​Aftermath was really looking forward to R. Kelly. When we were asked to cover the event we were a little hesitant, since modern R&B is entirely outside of our scope of musical knowledge, if not slightly outside our personal musical taste. But after mulling over it a little we began to see it as an educational opportunity, a chance to broaden our musical horizons.

  November 2, 2009

• Program Notes: Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor

  Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, 1809-1847​Here at Rocks Off, we enjoy album covers with turds on them and making fun of R. Kelly as much as the next guy. And just wait until Chris Brown gets here next weekend. But there's a lot more to music than that. In a possibly fruitless effort to class up the joint a bit, we're introducing a new feature illuminating some of our favorite works in the classical repertoire as played by the Houston Symphony. We could have hardly picked a better pla

  November 4, 2009

• Pop Rocks: I'm Shocked, Shocked To Discover Britney Spears Was Lip-Synching

  ​To think, I almost found myself agreeing with John Mayer.His response to the simmering Britney Spears lip-synching scandal -- mocking those who expressed outrage at the fact Spears was faking it during her concert in Perth, Australia last weekend -- would appear to be dead-on. One could even take this train of thought a step further and opine that getting conned out of $1,300 (for some seats) might be considered getting off lightly for those who continue to refer to whatever it is that Spears

  November 10, 2009