[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/trapped-in-the-closet-poster_999.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350: SeriousBusiness: The Musical]]

''Trapped in the Closet'' is a "[[RockOpera hip-hopera]]" from Music/RKelly, 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 SoBadItsGood. It's very clear from interviews that R. Kelly [[TookTheBadFilmSeriously takes it perfectly seriously]].

In October of 2012, R. Kelly started the continuation of ''Trapped In the Closet''.
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!!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!:

%%* {{AcCENT Upon The Wrong SylLABle}}
* AffablyEvil: TheMafia and Beeno. [[spoiler: Ultimately subverted with [[FauxAffablyEvil Beeno]] as he reveals that he knows Sylvester and Twan saw Joey, then tries to get them killed.]]
* AllJustADream: Chapter 21, where Sylvester and Twan's dealings with TheMafia go horribly wrong.
* AndThenWhat: 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.
* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: 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."
* ArtisticLicenseGunSafety: At one point, R. Kelly scratches his head with the barrel of his gun, in a manner very similar to characters in ''Film/Plan9FromOuterSpace''. In fact, in Chapters 3-4, Sylvester basically breaks every rule in the gun safety handbook.
* AuthorAvatar: 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.
* AxCrazy:
** 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!
%%* BedroomAdulteryScene
* BiggerIsBetterInBed: Big Man, hence the name.
* BigDamnHeroes: [[spoiler: 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.]]
* BlastOut: With TheMafia... but fortunately, AllJustADream. [[spoiler: Not a dream with Beeno's goons. They nearly die. ]]
* BringMyBrownPants: Big Man shits himself when James pulls his gun on him.
* ButtMonkey: 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; [[spoiler: he is one of the few characters who don't have AIDS by the end of the story.]]
* ChandlersLaw: The number of time Sylvester just pulls his beretta to escalate a situation is quite high.
* ChekhovsGunman: 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.
* ClosetShuffle: 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 ArtifactTitle situation.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: People in blue or purple are bad news.
* ContrivedCoincidence: 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.
%%* CoolOldLady: Rosie the nosy neighbor.
* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment:
** "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"
* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: 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.
* DoubleAesop: [[CluelessAesop Cheating is bad.]] Especially when [[CrapsackWorld everybody does it]]. Even the guy with AIDS.
-->"[[{{Foreshadowing}} What goes around comes back around.]]"
* DramaticGunCock: 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.
* EntitledToHaveYou: 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.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Pimp Lusius. Even his ''parents'' call him that!
* {{Foreshadowing}}:
** When Sylvester [[ThatCameOutWrong comes out of the closet]], he says Rufus looks like he's looking in a mirror, foreshadowing not just that [[AllGaysArePromiscuous 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 ChekhovsGun above.
** [[SubvertedTrope 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 PoorCommunicationKills or else foreshadow [[CellPhonesAreUseless the phone failing to work.]] Neither happens.
%%* FryingPanOfDoom: Roxanne's weapon of choice.
* GagPenis: When asked why Big Man the midget is called, he simply says "because I'm blessed" and points at his crotch.
* GirlOnGirlIsHot: "Y'all lucky I like that kinda shit, or I'd be done shot both y'all ass."
* GoThroughMe: When Sylvester starts to get frustrated with Rufus, Gwendolyn stands between the two to keep Sylvester from shooting him.
%%* GunpointBanter: It's not so much "banter" as it is melodrama, but...
* GunStruggle: Between James and Sylvester. Twan gets shot, but it's OnlyAFleshWound.
* HeelRealization: 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 ALighterShadeOfBlack 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.
* IkeaErotica: "Oh my goodness, I'm about to climax."
* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: Happens at one point as a consequence of RecklessGunUsage, although the victim is [[OnlyAFleshWound none the worse for wear]] afterwards, and [[EasilyForgiven doesn't bear any ill will]] for having been shot.
* InstantIllness: 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 [[spoiler:AIDS]].
* IronicNickname: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] with Big Man, [[spoiler: who has dwarfism]]. It's not ironic. It's just [[GagPenis not referring to his height]].
%%* KudzuPlot
* LemonyNarrator: 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.
%%* LittlePeopleAreSurreal
* LoveDodecahedron: Everybody's cheating on everybody with '''everyone'''.
* MadeOfIron: 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.
%%* MexicanStandoff: REPEATEDLY.
%%* MoralityBallad
%%* MundaneMadeAwesome: ''Thrives'' on it.
* NeverMyFault: 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.
* NWordPrivileges: Sylvester and Twan call each other "nigga" so often that the song is NSFW at certain chapters.
* NoodleIncident: Sylvester apparently did five years in prison for an unexplained crime.
%%* NosyNeighbor: Rosie, of course.
* OhCrap: Chapter 22, when [[spoiler: everyone finds out Chuck has AIDS. Considering pretty much ''all'' of them are within three partners of him...]]
* OneDegreeOfSeparation: Everyone in Chicago knows everyone else, or turns out to have some kind of deep connection to them.
* OnlyAFleshWound: "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.
* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Big Man again.
* TheParody:
** Music/WeirdAlYankovic'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... [[MundaneMadeAwesome 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.
** ''Series/{{MADtv}}'' also did a parody of both the song and the video, titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7putw2A4FiI Trapped in the Cupboard]].
* PimpDuds: 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.
* PsychopathicManchild: Twan. As soon as situations get tense, his solution is to kill everyone present.
* RandomEventsPlot
* RealisticDictionIsUnrealistic: Averted.
* RecklessGunUsage: Sylvester pulls out his gun at any given opportunity, e.g. when annoyed or confused. He uses his gun to gesticulate, even to [[Film/Plan9FromOuterSpace scratch his head]].
* TheReveal: One at the end of just about every chapter.
* RevisedEnding The alternate Chapter 12, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uxTwem8lug performed at the VMAs]], wraps up Cathy, Chuck, and Rufus's story. The final version, meanwhile, has Gwen interrupting the EpiphanyTherapy with stories of [[LittlePeopleAreSurreal people with dwarfism and policemen]], allowing Rufus to make his choice much, much later in the story.
* RightThroughHisPants: The sex scene in chapter four.
* RockOpera: Or rather, "hip-hopera".
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: [[SubvertedTrope 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 FunnyBackgroundEvent.
* SerialEscalation: How many more characters are cheating on each other?
* SoundEffectBleep: 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.
* StrictlyFormula: Every chapter has the exact same tune, just with different lyrics.
* ThirdPersonPerson: 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.
* TooDumbToLive: Rosie, after hearing loud arguing and gunfire in her neighbor's house, chose to go over with nothing but a spatula to defend herself.
%%** Twan.
* UnusualEuphemism: "The Package," for [[TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed HIV]].
* TheUnreveal: We never learn how James knows Chuck and Rufus.
* WhamLine: Damn near every chapter ends on one, but the best example would probably be "I can't believe it's [[spoiler:[[ComingOutStory a man!]]]]" in Chapter 2.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The whole "Big Man is Bridget's baby's daddy" plot thread is very abruptly dropped.
* WouldHitAGirl: Almost every male character threatens a woman at some point, although James hitting Bridgette is the only instance of it happening onscreen.

!!Now it's the end of the trope list...trope list...trope list...trope list...
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