R. Kelly’s Double Up, which recently hit stores, is more edgy and more hip-hop than any of the Kells’ recent releases. GIANT sat down with the R&B maestro to talk about the method to his musical madness and find out what caused this street-savvy shift in sound and sense…

On the sound of Double Up:
“The R&B joints is what made me, but the vibe is more hiphop, way more hiphop than ever, as far as R. Kelly is concerned.”

“I got like seven midtempo-type ballads that you can slow bob to. But other than that it’s maybe nine or ten uptempo club bangers on it. I’ve just taken every thing I’ve done over the last sixteen years and doubled up on it.”

On the haters:
“The haters sparks fire in me to strive even more and work harder. And stay hungrier. I’m very competitive and the more you talk about me, the more I’m gonna ride and the more I’m gonna strive and stay focused. Thank God for my fans sand radio stations cause all that overwhelms the bullshit as far as the haters.”

On working with other artists on remixes:
“Remixes are about fun. It’s almost like mama jokes to me. You got some good mama jokes and I got some, you hit me up then I got some. You go first show me what you got and if they good we gonna trade off and use em. We just change up and trade up.”

“I’ve been doing this for years now. When I work with Polow [Da Don] and them [for instance], they learned things from me, they’re honored to work with me. And I’m honored to be with them. They’re the youth, the new guys coming up, and I’m proud to work with them. There’s such a strong mutual respect between all of us and when you go in the studio with people with that mutual respect, ain’t nothing but magic gonna come outta that. Polow, The Runners, they’re fresh have fresh ideas and I get inspired by fresh ideas. It inspires me to go into the studio and do something good [for myself]. It’s a silent competition. But it’s all good if you know how to keep it in perspective and have fun with it. A lot of kats don’t understand that the point of a remix is to make it better than the record, not just change it. They think that if they just change it that should do it, but what they’re really doing is just killing the original song. And that’s when you hear people say ‘Ah, I like the original better, why you do that?’ I put my all into a remix because I got the hit already, now I can relax.”

On fear:
“You cannot be afraid. When I did ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ it was at a time in my life where the moon and the stars, as they say, lined up and it all fell into place. I needed some healing and sometimes the doctor has to inject his own self. That’s what I was feeling like, and I felt like I was I was writing something that would inspire myself to come up out of what I was dealing with it and going through, being depressed and being down. I’d gained a lot of weight. I needed uplift. And it worked.”

On his musical influences:
“I usually don’t hear my influences til the song is over with. When I’m writing I’m so into what I’m hearing on the radio in my head that I’m just like, ‘Wow, I can’t wait to finish this so everybody else can hear what I’ve just heard.’ It’s like there’s a monster in the backyard, and you’re just like, ‘Look out the window, y’all!’ I just want people to hear what’s in my head and I just be anxious to get into the studio and get it done. Once it’s done it’s like, ‘Oh man, that riff like there is like some Same Cooke shit.’”

On being compared to Ne-Yo and other young, up-and-coming songwriters:
“You know someone asked me what I think about Ne-Yo. I said, ‘He’s a great talent, he’s promising. [This person] said, ‘Well, he kinda reminds people of you, do you think he’s another R. Kelly?’ And I said I’ll never be able to answer that question and the reason why – no disrespect to Ne-Yo – is the simple fact that when he can look back fifteen years and leave a trail of nothing but hits he’ll still never catch up to me cause then I’ll be thirty years deep. That’s why I’ll never be able to answer that. And you know what happens when he get to thirty years.”

“When I was talking about competition earlier, I should tell you, when I talk like that, that’s me not relaxing. When I’m up twenty I always play like I’m down forty.”

For more  with R. Kelly, check out his exclusive GIANT photo gallery here!