Kesha is most positively not able to make good. The “Solely Love Can Save Us Now” singer detailed what she described as a scorched earth plan to shake up the music trade’s outdated guard in a brand new ELLE journal profile during which she warned that anybody with “deep, darkish secrets and techniques” higher be prepared for a reckoning.
“I don’t consider you’ll be able to create should you’re not feeling protected,” she informed the journal in detailing a brand new digital platform she’s engaged on with assist from folks within the tech trade that she mentioned will prioritize artist’s security. “The outdated guard, they’re falling. The outdated method of doing every little thing with secrecy — there’s no future there. So, like, these of you with deep, darkish secrets and techniques, you higher f–king run.”
Her warning to these conventional gatekeepers pulls no punches: “The music trade needs to be f–king afraid of me,” she mentioned. “As a result of I’m about to make some main strikes and shift this s–t. I actually need to dismantle it piece by piece and shine gentle into each nook. I hope my legacy is ensuring it by no means occurs to anyone ever once more.”
Kesha extracted herself from a contract with Dr. Luke following a 2023 settlement in her long-running civil lawsuit in opposition to the producer born Lukasz Gottwald over her claims of infliction of emotional misery, sexual harassment and assault; Luke denied the claims and reached a settlement with Kesha to dismiss his defamation swimsuit in opposition to her final 12 months, with each events denying any misconduct.
She has since fashioned her personal unbiased label, Kesha Information, which she mentioned is the primary huge step in taking again her musical voice after signing with Luke in 2005 when she was 18. “I’m free and it feels good,” she mentioned, noting that she has a reminder on her telephone that reads “you’re free.” Kesha is now totally in control of her music and free to work with any producers and writers she desires, a state of affairs that led to the discharge of her current single, the A.G. Prepare dinner (Charli XCX) and Zhone (Slayyyter)-produced “Joyride,” a bouncing, horn-spiked social gathering report on which she sings, “Rev my engine til you make it purr/ Hold it kinky, however I come first/ Beep-beep b–ch, I’m outdoors/ Get in loser, for the joyride.”
Not for nothing, Kesha mentioned “Joyride” was birthed each after the settlement of her Luke swimsuit in addition to within the wake of a break-up with somebody she felt was “in it for the flawed causes and was a little bit of a starf–ker,” and whose loyalty she assessed in essentially the most Kesha method potential. “I made a decision to check that principle and took one in every of my buddies as an alternative of him to Taylor Swift’s social gathering. He came visiting the subsequent day and broke up with me,” she mentioned.
At this level she hasn’t provide you with a title for the follow-up to her uncooked, 2023 fifth studio album, the not-to-subtly titled Gag Order, which marked her last launch by way of RCA Information and Luke’s Kemosabe Information. The phrases that maintain coming to thoughts as she ponders a reputation for it are additionally pointed and telling: freedom, security, pleasure.
“This report is my little wild youngster,” she mentioned, describing Gag Order as a technique to give voice to her extra painful feelings. “I used to be actually susceptible. Now I’m actually attempting to make method for the dangerous b–ch. I’m giving her the second — as a result of we’d like the house to have all of the feelings safely. I seize the empowered feelings, in order that I can hear again to it after I’m not feeling that method.”
Psyched to be “one hundred pc accountable for every little thing now,” Kesha mentioned her new music mogul period is permitting her to do all of the issues: “ideating the track, writing the track, singing the track, comping the track, coproducing the track, advertising and marketing the track, designing what I’m carrying for the track.”
As evidenced by the bubbly playful vibe of her current social media posts, Kesha is leaning into the which means of her identify in Russian (“harmless pleasure”) as a result of, as she mentioned, “my soul wants this album. I have to reclaim my pleasure. As a result of I fought so f–king exhausting for it.”
She additionally loves the truth that her fortitude and defiant spirit have clearly helped empower a brand new technology of strident feminine pop stars who’re embracing their authenticity. “I do have a way of feeling protecting of younger girls in music. I actually hope my pleasure can stand for others to know that it’s obtainable to them and to not hand over,” she mentioned of the singers she usually DMs to supply herself up for recommendation or a form sounding board. “I take pleasure in feeling my energy, which hasn’t been obtainable to me for a very very long time, and I’d love to offer that present to others if I can.”
She particularly shouts out Chappell Roan and Reneé Rapp, referring to the latter because the “most genuinely cool, calm, unbothered, iconic pop girlie.” Kesha invited Rapp to carry out along with her in Brooklyn in Nov. 2023 and Rapp returned the favor at April’s Coachella Competition, the place Kesha carried out her Billboard Scorching 100 topper “Tik Tok,” which pointedly featured a revised line dissing embattled hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was indicted on intercourse trafficking costs final month amid a dozen lawsuits alleging sexual assault and harassment; Diddy has denied the fees.
Although Roan drew consideration for enjoying to what was described as the largest daytime crowd in Lollapalooza historical past this summer time, Kesha mentioned she might sense the stress the “Scorching To Go” singer was seemingly feeling throughout a second many noticed as a dream state of affairs.
“Kesha was so beautiful to me after my Lollapalooza set,” Roan informed the journal. “As a result of with that massive of a crowd, possibly solely 5 different folks there understood what that’s like. Kesha got here to speak to me after, and it felt like an enormous sister was serving to me by way of it. Me and Reneé have been crying as a result of we felt like we have been seen in a method we by no means had been earlier than. Kesha has all the time stood up for girls and what she believes in and that’s very inspiring.”
