Kelis

Kelis Rogers made an arresting entrance when her confrontational breakup single “Caught Out There” began scaling Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop chart in the closing months of 1999. The song’s shouted refrain suggested a hypothetical younger heir to Millie Jackson on Ruff Ryders, yet it marked the first solo statement from a vocalist whose singular rasp quickly outstripped such easy analogies. Over the following seven years she added further successes with the Top Ten pop entry “Milkshake” and the multi-platinum “Bossy,” though these tracks served mainly as gateways to her most adventurous pop-R&B statements, the 2003 album Tasty and the Grammy-nominated Kelis Was Here released three years later.

Kelis sustained her pattern of upending expectations. After the autobiographical electronic pivot Flesh Tone in 2010 and the loosely conceptual Food in 2014, which blended funk, soul, and classic pop through live instrumentation, she stepped away from recording for an extended period before resurfacing with the 2021 single “Midnight Snacks.”

Raised in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood, Kelis Rogers departed home at sixteen and secured a Virgin recording contract four years afterward. Through her association with the emerging production duo the Neptunes she contributed background vocals to Noreaga’s “Superthug” and appeared on Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Got Your Money.” Months after the latter track’s appearance, she issued her debut album Kaleidoscope in December 1999. Entirely produced by the Neptunes, the set reached number 144 on the Billboard 200 while achieving stronger commercial traction in the United Kingdom, where it attained gold status. “Caught Out There” served as the lead single and climbed to number nine on the U.S. R&B/hip-hop chart.

Two years later she reunited with the Neptunes for Wanderland, yet internal restructuring at Virgin’s American division blocked its domestic release and prompted her move to Arista. She answered in 2003 with Tasty, which delivered the number-three pop hit “Milkshake”—again a Neptunes production—and peaked at number 27 on the Billboard 200. The single earned a Grammy nomination for Best Urban/Alternative Performance.

Kelis resurfaced in 2006 on Jive with Kelis Was Here. The album debuted at number ten on the Billboard 200 behind the assertive number-16 pop single “Bossy,” a Bangladesh production that included a verse from Too Short. The project brought her a second Grammy nomination, this time in the Best Contemporary R&B Album category. Jive subsequently assembled The Hits, a collection of singles and album tracks that also showcased notable collaborations such as “Got Your Money,” N.E.R.D.’s “Truth or Dare,” and Richard X’s “Finest Dreams.”

Between 2006 and 2010 Kelis pursued her longstanding interest in cookery, enrolling at Le Cordon Bleu and ultimately graduating as a certified chef. She returned to music in 2010, signing with Interscope through the will.i.am music group and issuing Flesh Tone, an EDM-oriented project shaped by contributions from David Guetta, Benny Benassi, Boys Noize, Diplo, and Jean Baptiste; it reached number five on Billboard’s club chart. The next year she appeared on Calvin Harris’s single “Bounce,” which attained number two on the U.K. singles chart. In 2013 she joined the independent British label Ninja Tune, linked with David Sitek of TV on the Radio, and delivered Food the following year. Compared with her earlier R&B output, the album favored organic textures rooted in live playing and incorporated occasional stylistic detours. Around the same period she hosted the Cooking Channel series Saucy & Sweet.

After a stretch of reduced musical activity, Kelis lent her voice to Giorgio Moroder’s “Back and Forth” and TCTS’s “Do It Like Me (Icy Feet),” served as a panelist on the BBC One program Pitch Battle, and competed on the U.K. edition of The Masked Singer. In 2021 she issued “Midnight Snacks,” her first proper single in seven years.