Along with her soft vocal – she breaks into a laugh after a particularly forthright line – it makes Like You a brilliantly original take on a bedroom slow jam. Outside her work with the Neptunes, Like You might have the most striking beat in Kelis’s catalogue: a cut-up, twisted sample of an opera singer that bursts into a nagging hook on the chorus. Beyond the gorgeous melody, there’s almost nothing to it – a tough beat, a bit of synth – but that’s all it needs: the Neptunes at their spartan best. Flashback (2001)Īnother track that escaped the commercial car crash of Wanderland to live another day, the futuristic funk of Flashback turned up in identical form on the album’s successor Tasty.
With its killer bassline, smart lyrics – “I can love you in one million ways, if you don’t like it, send it back in 30 days” – and superb guest appearance from Pusha-T (then still calling himself Terrar), Good Stuff was clever, minimal and different: in its own way, as much of a calling card as Caught Out There. In truth, you get rather more André than Kelis for your money, but who cares when the results are this good? 10. Produced by imperial-phase André 3000 and as good as anything on OutKast’s Speakerboxx/The Love Below, Millionaire is a fantastic track: a clipped new wavey drum machine under scattered, distorted synths and fabulous melody. Kelis isn’t particularly known for ballads, but Kaleidoscope’s heartbroken Get Along With You – a bittersweet slow-motion take on the very 1999 trend for R&B tracks driven by staccato riffs – showcases a suitably off-centre approach to the form: “Now I’m forced to roam this planet sadly,” she laments, “lonely like a loose baguette.” 11. From its opening studio chatter to its great self-deprecating gag about the artist’s limited vocal range – it’s hard to imagine any of her peers countenancing such a thing – Cobbler is a writhingly funky source of bountiful good vibes. Having often complained about her record labels, Kelis sounded genuinely comfortable on Food. She subsequently re-recorded it with then-partner Nas, but the original, featuring the Clipse’s Pusha-T, is the one. Yet it’s easily as good as her debut, as evidenced by the lurching beats and smart, repetitive hook of Popular Thug. Kelis’s second album, Wanderland, was a commercial disaster: her US label refused to release it and it flopped everywhere else. It’s great: a whisper of two-step garage in the beats, the lyrics about a collapsing relationship – at odds with the lush electronic backing. The great what-if of Kelis’s career: played on the radio, available online as an illicit rip, never officially released, the Skream-produced Distance was supposed to be the first single from an unfinished “trip-hoppy … darker” album. Her guest appearances are outside this list’s remit, but throughout her career, Kelis has collaborated with dance producers – Timo Maas, Moby, Richard X, Crookers – which helped to explain why her own left turn into house music on 2010’s Flesh Tone worked: poppily melodic but tough, 4th of July (Fireworks)’s commercial failure was surprising. With its husky vocal soaring over a tapestry of strings and horns and minimal piano, Forever Be is utterly joyous.
#KELIS KALEIDOSCOPE TV#
Four years after reinventing herself as a house diva, another left turn: Food was produced by TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek, its sound an idiosyncratic, eclectic, leftfield take on soul.
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