Double Up (R. Kelly album)

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	63/100^[1]
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	^[2]
Entertainment Weekly	C^[3]
Pitchfork Media	(6.7/10)^[4]
PopMatters	(7/10)^[5]
Robert Christgau	^[6]
Rolling Stone	^[7]
Slant Magazine	^[8]
Yahoo! Music UK	(4/10)^[9]

Double Up is the eighth studio album by American R&B singer and songwriter R. Kelly. It was released on May 29, 2007, by Jive Records, distributed by Zomba Label Group. The album features the contributions with guest appearances and also the productions, which was handled by R. Kelly, alongside with Swizz Beatz, The Runners, Snoop Dogg, Khao, Nelly, Chamillionaire and Polow da Don.

Its lead single, his remix to "I'm a Flirt", which features guest vocals from American rapper T.I. and American recording artist T-Pain; attaining the prominence of the success on the Billboard's Top 40 charts, while it peaked at number one on the US Top Hot Rap Tracks chart.

The album features the contributions with guest appearances and also the productions, which was handled by R. Kelly, alongside with Swizz Beatz, The Runners, Snoop Dogg, Khao, Nelly, Chamillionaire and Polow da Don.

Prior to the album's release, three songs were leaked onto the Internet: second single "Same Girl", which features Usher;

"Rise Up", a song which only appeared on some releases, a tribute to the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007; also making an early appearance was a song titled "Blow It Up", at first supposed to be featured on the album but absent from the final track listing, mainly due to the inappropriate mood it would have created because of the presence of the Virginia Tech shooting tribute song "Rise Up".

"Rock Star", which features Ludacris and Kid Rock, was released as the album's third single on September 4.

A video for the song "Real Talk" was also made directly on YouTube.

On May 25, 2007, four days before the album's release, the explicit version of the album became available for purchase on iTunes. The edited version became available on May 29, 2007, with a bonus track version available a day later.

On June 3, 2007 it entered the UK Albums Chart at #10.

The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, with first-week sales of 386,000 copies, making this his fifth album to debut at number-one.^[10] To date, the album has sold 1,200,000 copies in the United States.^[11]

Background

On YouTube, R. Kelly has a video of him speaking out about his state on his success and his thoughts of collaborating with artists, such Young Jeezy and Ludacris, he thought, "why not put some of that magic on my album?" He stated that 70 percent of the record will be uptempo but he assured fans that "there will be some slow jams on there."

Track listing

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
1.	"The Champ" (featuring Swizz Beatz)	Robert Kelly	Kelly	1:50
2.	"Double Up" (featuring Snoop Dogg)	Kelly, Calvin Broadus, Jr., C. Bereal, K. Bereal, C. Brockman, C. Keyes, N. Stewart	Kelly, Khao (co.)	4:48
3.	"Tryin to Get a Number" (featuring Nelly)	Kelly, C. Haynes	Kelly, Corey "Keyz" Martin	3:47
4.	"Get Dirty" (featuring Chamillionaire)	R. Kelly, H. Seriki	R. Kelly, Mysto & Pizzi (co.)	3:56
5.	"Leave Your Name"	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	3:27
6.	"Freaky in the Club"	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	4:35
7.	"The Zoo"	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	3:39
8.	"I'm a Flirt (Remix)" (featuring T.I. & T-Pain)	R. Kelly, S. Moss, R. Jackson, C. Harris, F. Najm	R. Kelly, Lil' Ronnie	5:32
9.	"Same Girl" (duet with Usher)	R. Kelly	R. Kelly, Lil' Ronnie	4:12
10.	"Real Talk"	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	3:00
11.	"Hook It Up" (featuring Huey)	R. Kelly, L. Franks Jr.	R. Kelly, Lil' Ronnie (co.)	4:15
12.	"Rock Star" (featuring Ludacris & Kid Rock)	R. Kelly, C. Bridges	R. Kelly	4:47
13.	"Best Friend" (featuring Keyshia Cole & Polow da Don)	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	4:41
14.	"Rollin'"	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	4:47
15.	"Sweet Tooth"	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	2:50
16.	"Havin a Baby"	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	3:34
17.	"Sex Planet"	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	5:35
18.	"Rise Up" (Virginia Tech Memorial tribute track) (Not included on some releases outside of North America)	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	3:31

International bonus tracks
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
19.	"Ringtone" (US / Japan / Canada / Australia / UK / Russian / iTunes bonus track)	R. Kelly, J. Jones, T. Nash, W. Hodge	R. Kelly, Polow da Don	3:41
20.	"I Like Love" (Japan / Canada bonus track)	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	3:20
21.	"Ooh Baby" (iTunes/Philippines/Mexico/Spain bonus track)	R. Kelly	R. Kelly	3:38
22.	"Good Sex" (featuring Twista) (iTunes/South American/New Zealand/African/Iraq/Israel/Turkey/Poland/India bonus track)	R. Kelly, A. Harr, J. Jackson, C. Mitchell	R. Kelly, The Runners	3:40

Samples credits

Double Up "Iceberg" performed by Tweet

Hook It Up

"Turn da Lights Off" performed by Tweet

Notes

There are different iTunes' versions of Double Up. Some features the track "Ringtone", as track 20; instead of 19.^[12] Other versions have "I Like Love" or the video for "I'm a Flirt" as bonus features.
On all versions (digital and CD) of Double Up, "I'm a Flirt" is presented in its censored form while the other songs are not.
On most international versions of the album, the song "Rise Up" is omitted in favor of the aforementioned bonus tracks. The song "Rise Up" was reportedly intended predominantly for North American listeners because it is about the Virginia Tech massacre, something that some non-North American fans of R. Kelly may be unfamiliar with.
The extended version of the song "Get Dirty" with an extended verse by Chamillionaire was released on R. Kelly's MySpace page.
The new intro to the song "I'm a Flirt (Remix)" was released, only featuring an additional 10 seconds of music before the actual song. The only evidence of this was found on YouTube.^[13] The video is no longer available because the YouTube account which uploaded the video has been deleted.

Release history

Region	Date
Jamaica	January 9, 2007 (2007-01-09)
Haiti	May 29, 2007 (2007-05-29)
United States
Canada
Russia
Japan	December 10, 2007 (2007-12-10)
Netherlands	March 1, 2008 (2008-03-01)
United Kingdom	March 1, 2008 (2008-03-01)
New Zealand	June 4, 2007 (2007-06-04)
European Union
India
South Africa	May 2, 2007 (2007-05-02)
Iran	June 7, 2007 (2007-06-07)
Iraq
Israel
Turkey
China
Belgium
Oceania	August 12, 2007 (2007-08-12)
Brazil
Mexico
Spain
Philippines
Austria
Poland
Italy	October 3, 2007 (2007-10-03)
Germany	February 4, 2008 (2008-02-04)
Middle East	September 4, 2007 (2007-09-04)
Colombia
Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Ireland
France
Finland	December 3, 2007 (2007-12-03)
Greece
Norway
Indonesia	February 19, 2008 (2008-02-19)

Chart positions

Chart (2007)	Peak position
US Billboard 200	1
US Digital Albums (Billboard)^[14]	4
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)	1
UK Albums Chart	10
Canadian Albums Chart	19
German Albums Chart	46
Dutch Albums Chart	34
Italian Albums Chart	62
European Albums Chart	1

References

↑ "Double Up Reviews, Ratings, Credits, and More at Metacritic". Metacritic. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
↑ Hoffman, K. Ross. "R. Kelly: Double Up > Review" at AllMusic. Retrieved 3 September 2011.
↑ Willman, Chris (25 May 2007). "Double Up: R. Kelly". Entertainment Weekly (936).
↑ Dombal, Ryan (5 June 2007). "R. Kelly: Double Up". Pitchfork Media.
↑ Boeckel, Gentry (8 June 2007). "R. Kelly: Double Up". PopMatters.
↑ Christgau, Robert. "CG: R. Kelly". RobertChristgau.com. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
↑ Christgau, Robert (29 May 2007). "R. Kelly: Double Up". Rolling Stone.
↑ Henderson, Eric (31 May 2007). "R. Kelly: Double Up". Slant Magazine.
↑ Gennoe, Dan (1 June 2007). "R. Kelly - Double Up". Yahoo! Music UK. Archived from the original on June 9, 2007.
↑ http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1051710/r-kelly-flirts-his-way-to-no-1-album-chart-debut
↑ "R. Kelly Still Steamy On New Song Leaks". Billboard.com.
↑ gnoos — Internal server error
↑ Video on YouTube This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.
↑ http://www.billboard.com/artist/277270/r-kelly/chart?f=400

External links

Preceded by It Won't Be Soon Before Long by Maroon 5	Billboard 200 number-one album June 10, 2007 - June 16, 2007	Succeeded by Epiphany by T-Pain

R. Kelly

Discography Production Discography Videography Awards and nominations

Studio albums	12 Play R. Kelly R. TP-2.com Chocolate Factory Happy People/U Saved Me TP.3 Reloaded Double Up Untitled Love Letter Write Me Back Black Panties The Buffet

Collaboration albums	Born into the 90's (with Public Announcement) The Best of Both Worlds (with Jay Z) Unfinished Business (with Jay Z)

Mixtape	The Demo Tape (Gangsta Grillz)

Remix albums	Remix City, Vol. 1

Compilation albums	The R. in R&B Collection, Vol. 1 My Diary Playlist: The Very Best of R. Kelly Epic The Essential R. Kelly

Official tours	The Best Of Both Worlds Tour The Light It Up Tour Love Letter Tour

Filmography	Trapped in the Closet R. Kelly Live the Light It Up Tour

Trapped in the Closet	Trapped in the Closet Chapter 1 Chapters 1–12 Chapters 13–22 Chapters 23–33 Trapped in the Closet: The Movie Trapped in the Closet: The Book "Trapped in the Closet" (South Park) "Trapped in the Drive-Thru"

Bibliography	Soulacoaster: The Diary of Me Trapped in the Closet: The Book

Related articles	Discography Production discography Videography Songs Unreleased songs List of R. Kelly tours Rockland Records (own label) Public Announcement Aaliyah Andrea Kelly Joann Kelly

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