The contest banner as it ran on Jamglue, summer 2007, recovered from the still-live static.jamglue.com bucket.
The R. Kelly “I'm a Flirt” Duet Contest
In summer 2007, to mark the release of Double Up, Jamglue and Jive Records ran a contest that was not a remix contest at all. R. Kelly sang the first thirty seconds of “I'm a Flirt”; the next thirty were yours. You put on headphones, hit record in the browser, sang or rapped your verse into a microphone, and Jamglue lined your take up against his and handed you back a duet. 416 entries were created.
The page below is rebuilt from two archived versions of the contest page, one while it was live and one after judging, plus the Jamglue blog. Jive added its own label pick as an extra tier the printed rules never mentioned.
About the Contest
Four steps, quoted as they read on June 1, 2007:
“Jamglue is excited to showcase a duet contest featuring ‘Double Up’ by Jive Records recording artist R. Kelly. You can record your own track and we'll make a duet with R. Kelly featuring YOU!”
Listen to R. Kelly's track and get familiar with it. Think about how you want to sound and practice if you want. This will be the “backing track” that you listen to while you record your part.
Record your version alongside R. Kelly. You'll use the Jamglue Recorder and the instructions to the right. Don't forget to use headphones, so that the R. Kelly track doesn't leak into your microphone when you record!
Listen to your version mixed against R. Kelly. After a few minutes, you will be able to listen to your track mixed against R. Kelly. If you like it, hit publish. Or you can tweak the mix in the Jamglue Mixer if you want.
Share your mix! Once you publish your mix, anyone can download and listen to it. Be sure to embed your duet in your blog and myspace, and email it to all your friends to gather votes!
“Ever wanted to collaborate with the King of R&B? Now's your chance!!! To commemorate the release of R. Kelly's new album ‘DOUBLE UP’, we have partnered with Jive Records to bring you this super cool contest. All you need is a microphone to sing a duet with R. KELLY on his hit single ‘I'm a Flirt.’”
Divya Bhat, “Collaborate with R. Kelly on Jamglue!”, the Jamglue Blog, June 1, 2007
The Recorder
There was one piece of material: the backing track, “I'm A Flirt - R. Kelly Backing Track,” uploaded to Jamglue by the account R_Kelly. Everything else on the page was the instructions for recording against it, in a Flash recorder running in the browser in 2007:
“Hit ACTIVATE RECORDER, then hit ‘Allow’ to activate your microphone. When you're ready, hit RECORD. The recorder will ask you to ‘please wait’ for a few seconds while it prepares the backing track. When the music starts in your headphones, record your version into your microphone!”
“You can hit the play button to hear your recording. If you like it, hit SAVE to go on. If you don't, hit CLEAR to record again. Note: This preview is of your recording only; you may hear silence for the first 30 seconds during R. Kelly's part.”
“After you save your recording, we'll process it for a minute and line it up against the R. Kelly track. When the processing is done, you'll see a box below that will let you listen to the results and publish!”
The page put the point in one line, three exclamation marks and all: “R. Kelly sings for the first 30 seconds - the next 30 seconds are completely up to you!!!”
Licensing. Entries had to be licensed to the public under the
Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 2.5 license, by 11:59 p.m. PT on July 14, 2007; entries created or licensed after that were not eligible. The official rules are headed “Jamglue and Zomba Label Group, R Kelly / ‘Double Up’ Contest Official Rules” and list the sponsors as Jamglue Inc. of 214 Summit Ave. E, Seattle, and Zomba Label Group.
The Prizes
One Grand Prize and five First Prizes, per the official rules.
Grand Prize: the winning duet featured on the official R. Kelly website (www.r-kelly.com) and MySpace page, one autographed R. Kelly Double Up album, and one autographed R. Kelly poster. Approximate retail value $37.98.
First Prize, five awarded: one R. Kelly Double Up album each. ARV $15.98.
Judging was pure popularity: “The Grand Prize winning duet and five (5) first place duets will be determined by the number of Jamglue users who called the duets ‘A Favorite,’ subject to contest eligibility.” A winner who did not respond within 14 days was disqualified and the next highest scoring duet promoted. In the end more prizes went out than the rules called for: see below.
The Deadlines
| May 29, 2007 | The audio elements go online at 1:00 a.m. PT; the entry period opens. |
| Jun 1, 2007 | The blog announces the contest. The Wayback Machine captures the live page the same day. |
| Jul 14, 2007 | Entry deadline, 11:59 p.m. PT. |
| By Mar 2008 | The contest page is rewritten with the results. The March 12, 2008 capture counts 416 entries created in all. |
Winners
“The results are in, and our winners have been chosen!” The contest page was rewritten with the results once judging finished, and that version was archived. Ten duets were named across four tiers, including a Professional's Pick that the rules never mentioned and an honorable mention for an entry that broke them. Every name and title below is taken verbatim from the
March 12, 2008 capture of the contest page; each mix links to its own archived page.
Grand Prize
“The winning remix will soon be featured on R. Kelly's Myspace. Congratulations to star Jamglue user samuelvictor!”
Professional's Pick
“This mix was hand-picked by Jive Records! It will be featured on the Jamglue Homepage, and THEGHOST will get prizes from Jamglue and Jive Records.” A label pick alongside the popular vote, invented after the rules were written.
First Prize
The rules promised five. Seven were awarded.
Honorable Mention
“This fantastic entry didn't qualify for the contest because it's not a vocal duet, but smx still gets a Jamglue t-shirt and our congratulations!” Someone entered the duet contest with a straight remix, was too good to ignore, and got a t-shirt for it.
What survives: the names, the titles, the tier blurbs, and an archived mix page for all ten. None of the audio does, not the duets and not the backing track. Jamglue put downloads behind a sign-in, so no crawler ever reached the files, and nothing from this contest has been found anywhere else. Of all the pages in this section this is the one where that hurts most: every entry was somebody's own voice, recorded once, into a laptop microphone, in 2007.
About the Artist
The bio Jive supplied, as it ran on the page: “As the undisputed king of R&B, R. Kelly never seems to be far from the current soul scene. Be it collaborating with his homeboy Snoop (‘That's That’) or trading verses with Ciara (‘Promise Remix’), this Chicago soul man has displayed a consistent brilliance throughout his fifteen-year career. Since 2002, R. Kelly has blessed his fans with a new album every year, and 2007 will be no different.” The page linked out to r-kelly.com, the R. Kelly MySpace page, and R.KellyTV on YouTube, and embedded a clip of Kelly telling the story of how he put Double Up together.
Sources
jamglue.com/contests/rkelly on launch day: the four steps, the recorder instructions, the backing track, the early entries, and the full official rules with the prize table.
The same URL after judging, with all four winner tiers and the 416 entry count. This capture is the source for every name on this page.
“Collaborate with R. Kelly on Jamglue!” by Divya Bhat: the announcement, the prizes, and the backing track.
static.jamglue.com
The banner at the top of this page, still sitting in Jamglue's original S3 bucket.
