![]() “And then there’s a disconnect: I’m hypersensitive to the stuff my parents fought for because they weren’t sheltering me from the realities. But you look at parents today and they’re like: ‘Oh my God, it’s nap time, I can’t talk to you!’ And it’s all: ‘We can’t go there because we have kids!’ I’m like, did we die when we had kids? “I grew up hanging out in jazz clubs, falling asleep there with people stepping over me, because that’s where my parents were, so they just took me. Having established that, she then spends 15 minutes sharing her deep thoughts about the album’s anniversary, which take in everything from President Trump to modern parenting. I feel everyone is expecting me to have these deep thoughts about, and I just don’t,” she says. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. “Yeah, I’m struggling a little bit, if I’m honest. ![]() But looking back does not sit comfortably with an artist who has always prided herself on moving forward, and, truth be told, she would not have even noticed it was the anniversary if her manager hadn’t mentioned it. It is the 20th anniversary of Kaleidoscope, her enduringly beautiful debut album, and she is about to embark on a world tour to mark it. The reason Kelis is taking a break from farming today is to talk about the record where all this – the career, the confusions and, ultimately, the farm – began. But people were like: ‘But you’re black and alternative? What is that?’ Which already is a stupid-ass question, but it was put in our faces all the time,” she says. Macy Gray and I were the first to be considered alternative. It was never something that I struggled with personally. “The issue of race has been such a big part of my entire career. On top of that, she had a run of bewilderingly bad luck with record companies. ![]() But that variety may also have worked against her, because it means she does not have an easy, ready-fit brand. She has made dance music, soul music and even – on my favourite of her songs, Like You, from her fourth album, 2006’s Kelis Was Here – sampled Mozart. Refusing to be restricted to the R&B and hip-hop boxes into which young black artists are often shoved, Kelis’s versatile, distinctive voice meant producers as varied as David Guetta, will.i.am and Dave Sitek were keen to work with her. She has also made an enthusiastic divergence into cookery, after training as a Cordon Bleu chef, and is now making plans to open a restaurant nearby, using produce from her farm.Īs a musician, Kelis was often called “hard to place”, which is another way of saying that record companies and radio stations did not know how to sell her. Since then, there have been more albums, marriages, divorce, children and a recent, somewhat surprising, appearance on The Masked Singer. This was followed, a few years later, by the world-conquering Milkshake, on her third album, Tasty. At 40, she looks barely five years older than the precociously dignified, occasionally goofy teenager who broke through in the late 90s screaming “I hate you so much right now!” on Caught Out There, from her debut album, Kaleidoscope. You get up in the morning and do what you gotta do, and then you look around and you’re like: Why does it still look like this? Oh my God!” she laughs, barefoot in paint-stained jeans and a loose jumper, her crimson braids swept back into a ponytail. “It’s pretty much my husband and me looking after the farm. Kelis also has a 10-year-old son, Knight, with her first husband, the hip-hop artist Nas, and Shepherd proudly shows me the bedroom he shares with his “really big brother”. They are her husband, Mike, a photographer, and their son, Shepherd. ![]() ![]() In front of the main house, a handsome man is raking leaves, accompanied by an adorable four-year-old boy. ![]()
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