Music / Trapped in the Closet

Trapped in the Closet is a "hip-hopera" from R. Kelly, the first songs/videos of which were released in 2005. Dozens of further installments ("chapters") have been released since. The songs tell the story of Sylvester (played in the music videos by R. Kelly himself) and the crazy characters he encounters as a result of a one-night stand.

It has since become a cult classic, generally regarded as So Bad, It's Good. It's very clear from interviews that R. Kelly takes it perfectly seriously.

In October of 2012, R. Kelly started the continuation of Trapped In the Closet and it was release in February 2013.

He walks up to the trope list! He just looks at the trope list! Stares real hard at the trope list! Maybe edits the trope list!:

• Aborted Arc: The whole "Big Man is Bridget's baby's daddy" plot thread is very abruptly dropped. In Chapter 23, all we learn about their current status is that the James, Bridget and Big Man resolved their issues offscreen.
• Affably Evil: The Mafia and Beeno. Ultimately subverted with Beeno as he reveals that he knows Sylvester and Twan saw Joey, then tries to get them killed.
• All Just a Dream: Chapter 21, where Sylvester and Twan's dealings with The Mafia go horribly wrong.
• Ambiguous Situation: Did Chuck really have "the package" or did Randolph misread the situation? Likewise, Chapter 27 suggests that "the package" itself might not necessarily be really HIV/AIDS like the audience was led to believe.
• And Then What?: Sylvester talks Twan down by reminding him of this:
  Sylvester: What'chu goin do nigga kill these bitches?
  Twan: Yeah!
  Sylvester: And then what? Then what? Life nigga! They'll lock yo ass up and throw away the key.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Chapter 6, Sylvester tells Gwendolyn about what happened to him in the past 5 chapters. Gwendolyn comments, "Damn, you've been through a lot of shit." To which Sylvester replies "Plus, I got a ticket."
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: At one point, R. Kelly scratches his head with the barrel of his gun, in a manner very similar to characters in Plan 9 from Outer Space. In fact, in Chapters 3-4, Sylvester basically breaks every rule in the gun safety handbook.
• Author Avatar: Sylvester is this for Kelly himself, being partly named after him (Sylvester is his middle name) and being the only character that he doesn't wear any kind of makeup or costume for.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Twan. He's supposedly trying to turn his life around but "kill everyone" seems to be his default solution to most problems.
  • Bankhead. He nearly blows off Twan's and Sylvester's heads; and that's before Beeno sends him to kill them!
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Big Man, hence the name.
• Big Damn Heroes: Twan and Sylvester when they burst into James's (the policeman's) house to save Bridget. Twan when he saves Sylvester and him from Beeno's goons.
• Blast Out: With The Mafia... but fortunately, All Just a Dream. Not a dream with Beeno's goons. They nearly die.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Big Man shits himself when James pulls his gun on him.
• Bullying a Dragon: Rufus is so mad about Cathy's adultery that he acts irate and flippant towards Sylvester despite the holding a loaded gun on him.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Twan gets no respect throughout the story, being portrayed as a hot-headed idiot. He even gets properly introduced by being shot by Sylvester/James. Though, he gets the last laugh; he is one of the few characters who don't have AIDS by the end of the story.
  • Pimp Lucius is respected by no one except his prostitutes due to his profession and his eccentric behavior.
• Chandler's Law:
  • The number of time Sylvester just pulls his beretta to escalate a situation is quite high.
  • In Chapter 6, Sylvester and Gwendolyn forgive each other for their adultery and laugh. Unfortunately, the situation re-escalates after James, thinking that Sylvester will harm Gwendolyn for cheating on him, bursts into their home with his gun drawn.
• Chekhov's Gunman: There are no minor characters. Even the characters who at first seem only to exist for a single scene turn out to be sleeping with or have a history with the main characters.
• Closet Shuffle: In the first episode, hence the title. It happens several more times: once with a closet again (Randolph), once with a kitchen cabinet (Big Man), and once with the Narrator narrating from a closet for no apparent reason. These reoccurrences are presumably to avoid an Artifact Title situation.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: People in blue or purple are bad news.
• Contrived Coincidence: Inexplicably, when James is about to kill Big Man, Bridgette's first instinct is call her husband's lover for help and Sylvester and Twan decide to go stop the incident personally.
• Cut Short: The final chapter was released in 2013 and it ended on a cliffhanger with multiple unresolved plotlines. R. Kelly's criminal convictions in 2019 means that the story will likely never be finished.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  • "And then he continues to rough up the midget as if the midget was under attack."
  • "He walks up to the closet, He comes up to the closet"
  • "You looked like you'd seen a ghost come from the dead"
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Lets just say the title can be pretty misleading. Lampshaded early on when a pastor says "Well, since we're all comin' out the closet, I'm not about to be the only one who's broken-hearted." He then comes out of the closet.
• Double Aesop: Cheating is bad. Especially when everybody does it. Even the guy with AIDS.
  "What goes around comes back around."
• Dramatic Gun Cock: When Chuck starts going into details about him and Rufus, Sylvester doesn't want to hear it.
  Sylvester: I said Brother spare me the details.
• Entitled to Have You: Chuck declares that he has the right to love whoever he pleases and treats Rufus's wife like she's the interloper in their affair.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Pimp Lucius. Even his parents call him that!
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Sylvester comes out of the closet, he says Rufus looks like he's looking in a mirror, foreshadowing not just that Rufus is cheating on his wife too, but that Sylvester's going to be in this same situation soon.
  • For that matter, everything else. See Chekhov's Gun above.
  • Subverted by the terrible reception Sylvester gets on his phone at one point. In any other story, this would either be the set up for Poor Communication Kills or else foreshadow the phone failing to work. Neither happens.
• Gag Penis: When asked why Big Man the midget is called, he simply says "because I'm blessed" and points at his crotch.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: "Y'all lucky I like that kinda shit, or I'd be done shot both y'all ass."
• Go Through Me: When Sylvester starts to get frustrated with Rufus, Gwendolyn stands between the two to keep Sylvester from shooting him.
• Gun Struggle: Between James and Sylvester. Twan gets shot, but it's Only a Flesh Wound.
• Heel–Faith Turn: Averted. Pimp Lucius pretends to have one when accompanying his cousin to church and Reverend Mosely calls on him to give up pimping and give his life to God, with him promising to do so only to immediately recant it as soon as he's out of the congregation's earshot. In Chapter 25, it's revealed that Pimp Lucius has started hearing God's voice at random times ever since that night in church.
• Heel Realization: Experienced by Sylvester, Rufus, and Cathy all at different points in the story.
• Hypocrite:
  • Multiple characters get called out for being enraged at their spouse's infidelity, despite cheating themselves. At least two (Sylvester and Rufus) attempt to paint themselves as A Lighter Shade of Black by more or less saying "Yes, I also cheated, but at least I didn't do it in our home." Nobody really buys it, though.
  • Twan hates Roxanne and Tina for selling him out to the cops even though he attempted to pin his drug trafficking scheme on them.
  • Randolph hate how much of a nosy gossip is wife Rosy is. However, after overhearing about Rufus's gay love affair and him potentially having the package, the first thing he does is rush home to tell her about it.
• Ikea Erotica: "Oh my goodness, I'm about to climax."
• I Have No Son!: Randolph has disowned Pimp Lucius due to the latter dropping out of high school and becoming a pimp.
• I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Happens at one point as a consequence of Reckless Gun Usage, although the victim is none the worse for wear afterwards, and doesn't bear any ill will for having been shot.
• Insistent Terminology: Pimp Lucius demands that everyone, even his own parents, put "Pimp" in front of his first name, getting annoy whenever someone just calls him Lucius.
• Instant Illness: In period of seemingly less than twelve hours, Chuck goes from being strong enough to try and fight Cathy for Rufus to being wheelchair bound in the hospital due to AIDS.
• Ironic Nickname: Subverted with Big Man, who has dwarfism. It's not ironic. It's just not referring to his height.
• Lemony Narrator: But in a humorously poorly done way. So much that eventually, after narrating in first person for several chapters, Sylvester abruptly starts referring to himself in the third person from then on. He doesn't even start at any particular point. Take Chapter 11, where he switches between "Sylvester" and "I" almost every other line. What's more, in the first chapter, he refers to Gwen in the second person, which is forgotten when she appears in the third.
• Love Dodecahedron: Everybody's cheating on everybody with everyone.
• Made of Iron: Twan gets shot in the shoulder, losing what can charitably be described as a decent amount of blood, but is perfectly fine after a trip to the bathroom and some self-administered first aid with a simple bandage.
• Mama Bear: Rosie loves her son Pimp Lucius, despite him being a violent pimp, and makes Randolph let him into their home despite his protests.
• Mexican Standoff: REPEATEDLY. The first happens between Sylvester, James and Bridgette in Chapter 11. The second happens in Chapter 21 between Sylvester, Twan and Tony's goons though this turns out to be a dream sequence. The final one that happens is in Chapter 32 between Sylvester, Twan and Beeno's goons.
• Never My Fault: It was Twan's plan to traffic drugs and it was his fault he got caught by smoking weed, driving drunk and erratically, and playing loud music. He refuses to acknowledge his responsibility and blames Roxanne and Tina for "selling him out" to the cops, even though he was prepared to pin the whole affair on them when given the chance.
• N-Word Privileges: Sylvester and Twan call each other "nigga" so often that the song is NSFW at certain chapters.
• Noodle Incident: Sylvester apparently did five years in prison with Pimp Lucius for an unexplained crime.
• Nosy Neighbor: Rosie is a giant snoop and a gossip who's constantly looking out her window at her neighbors houses and even came by Sylvester's house after hearing a gunshot instead of calling the police.
• Oh, Crap!: Chapter 22, when everyone finds out Chuck has AIDS. Considering pretty much all of them are within three partners of him...
• One Degree of Separation: Everyone in Chicago knows everyone else, or turns out to have some kind of deep connection to them.
• Only a Flesh Wound: "We'd better get you to the hospital to check out that wound. / It's okay, it's just my shoulder, all I need is a bathroom." The bandage then promptly disappears a couple chapters later, his shoulder looking unscathed.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Big Man again.
• The Parody:
  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Trapped in the Drive-Thru", which is eleven minutes long, divided into three chapters with the same musical and dramatic structure as the original... except that it's about a couple getting dinner at the drive-thru. The mundane subject matter itself can be seen as parody, given how ridiculously over-the-top the scenarios in the original are.
  • MADtv also did a parody of both the song and the video, titled Trapped in the Cupboard.
• Pimp Duds: Downplayed. While Pimp Lucius does dress well, in a pastel suit and Homburg hat and some bling, his attire is no where near gaudy or outrageous, and his cane is a nondescript derby cane.
• Playing Both Sides: It's revealed in Chapter 32 that Sylvester was selling intel to both Beeno's gang and the Italians, which nearly gets him and Twan killed when Beeno finds out.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Twan. As soon as situations get tense, his solution is to kill everyone present.
• Random Events Plot: Most of the surreal events of the story completely unconnected aside from the fact that many of the people involved were part of a web of adultery.
• Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: Averted.
• Reckless Gun Usage: Sylvester pulls out his gun at any given opportunity, e.g. when annoyed or confused. He uses his gun to gesticulate, even to scratch his head.
• The Reveal: One at the end of just about every chapter.
• Revised Ending The alternate Chapter 12, performed at the VMAs, wraps up Cathy, Chuck, and Rufus's story. The final version, meanwhile, has Gwen interrupting the Epiphany Therapy with stories of people with dwarfism and policemen, allowing Rufus to make his choice much, much later in the story.
• Right Through His Pants: The sex scene in chapter four.
• Rock Opera: Or rather, "hip-hopera".
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Attempted numerous times by Sylvester, and it usually gets worse once he leaves. Finally achieved at the end of Chapter 11, as part of a Funny Background Event.
  • Rufus walks out of an interview in Chapter 27, believing he had been invited to talk about his church only to be bombarded with questions about his personal drama.
  • Tina gets into a big fight with Roxanne in Chapter 29, blaming her for Twan leaving her and her child, before breaking up with her and going off to try and reunite with him.
• Serial Escalation: How many more characters are cheating on each other?
• Sound-Effect Bleep: For no reason that will ever be made clear, Chapter 5 and Chapter 5 alone censors every expletive with a clip of R. Kelly making a little "doo" noise.
• Speech Impediment: Pimp Lucius has a severe stutter that causes him to frequently repeat syllables and pause on words for a lengthy period of time.
• Strictly Formula: Every chapter has the exact same tune, just with different lyrics.
• Target To Hurt The Hero: Sylvester and Twan point guns at Beeno and his gang to defend themselves, the gang leader threatens that their family and friends won't live to see the weekend.
• Third-Person Person: The singer (Sylvester) sometimes refers to himself as "him" or "Sylvester" while singing, while other times he says "I". This is obviously not intentional, just a side-effect of juggling characters while singing an extended song.
• Too Dumb to Live: Rosie, after hearing loud arguing and gunfire in her neighbor's house, chose to go over with nothing but a spatula to defend herself.
• Unusual Euphemism: "The Package" is believed to be one for HIV.
• The Unreveal: We never learn how James knows Chuck and Rufus.
• Viler New Villain: Beeno and his gang is this when compared to the much more affable Tony and the Italians.
• We Used to Be Friends: Sylvester and Pimp Lucius were close friends in high school but the former washed his hands of the latter after the two went to prison and Lucius became a pimp afterwards.
• Wham Line: Damn near every chapter ends on one, but the best example would probably be "I can't believe it's a man!" in Chapter 2.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: One of the overarching questions of Chapter 23 and onward is what happened to Chuck.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • Almost every male character threatens a woman at some point, although James hitting Bridgette is the only instance of it happening onscreen.
  • Pimp Lucius repeatedly threatens his prostitutes with violence. A year before the series began, he hit Tina in eye so hard that she developed a nervous twitch and he threatens to due the same to his other girls when one of them come up short on money.

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