It’s about to be 20 years since the release of her debut album Kaleidoscope and with the anniversary coming up, Kelis has dropped a bombshell in an interview with The Guardian.
According to the singer, The Neptunes (Pharrell and Chad Hugo) stole the profits and publishing from her first two albums. As she tells it, she wasn’t poor anymore, so she didn’t notice since she was making money off touring but the way they see it, she signed a contract and they did nothing wrong.
“I was told we were going to split the whole thing 33/33/33, which we didn’t do. I was blatantly lied to and tricked by The Neptunes and their management and their lawyers and all that stuff. Their argument is: ‘Well, you signed it.’ I’m like: ‘Yeah, I signed what I was told, and I was too young and too stupid to double-check it.’
She also says she saw Pharrell at an event and he acted like it was all good.
“And he did that thing to me that he’s notorious for, which is making a nod from the stage [to someone in the audience], so it seems like there’s mutual respect, when in reality…” she says with a laugh. “I’m like, OK, I’m not going to yell back: ‘You stole all my publishing!’ So you end up nodding back and everyone thinks everything’s great. Like, whatever.”
But she’s not mad about what happened, when it’s all said and done:
To be honest with you, I think if it were not for my faith, I feel like that would probably be the case. It’s very clear to me, especially being on a farm, that whatever you put in the ground, that is what’s going to come back to you.”
We’ll see if either Skateboard P or Chad respond to these allegations because we’re sure someone will ask them in the near future.