“I felt really torn for a long time about how to interact with the first couple of albums I put out,” Kesha tells Rolling Stone Music Now. But after reaching a settlement in her long, ugly legal battle with ex-producer Dr. Luke — and launching her own label, Kesha Records — she’s finally comfortable looking back fondly at her glitter-spattered early days.
With a new 15th anniversary deluxe version of her debut, Animal, and its follow-up, Cannibal, due this week, Kesha went deep on the making of those releases in the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now. “I went back and realized that was just me,” she says. “I love that I was so playful and that I just didn’t give a fuck. And I love that I was so naive about having fun in front of the whole world. What a fearless bad bitch! I have so much love for her. She had no idea how painful that was gonna be, to be so imperfect in front of the whole world, but what a badass motherfucker.”
Elsewhere in the episode, Kesha talks about making her early hits (which are still going viral), writing “stupid” lyrics, her musical future and much more. A few highlights follow; to hear the whole episode, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above.
Kesha is “grateful” for “Tik Tok” now. “I kept being like, it’s just too stupid,” she says. “But then I would listen back, and I’d be like, ‘No, it’s really fun’… I’m so grateful for that silly fucking little song, ’cause I’m like the dopamine doula to the drunk people on the dance floor.”
Kesha hasn’t been contractually allowed to release a new version of “Tik Tok” that changes the “feeling like P. Diddy” lyric. “I am not allowed to release it yet,” she says. “But at my shows, just so everybody knows, the lyrics have officially changed to ‘wake up in the morning like, fuck P Diddy.’ And that stands for all that I can’t say.”
Her old record contract didn’t allow her to choose which of her songs got released. “To be honest, like I was not really in control at all over what could come out,” she says. “I would go to the studio every Goddamn day and I would write, and I would try to make the best song anyone had ever heard every single day. And beyond that, because of something I signed, I had no rights to my recorded voice in the universe. In perpetuity. So I kind of was just doing the only thing I guess I had control over doing, which was, let me just try to make the best fucking songs I can.”
Kesha saw herself as a voice for outsiders in pop music. “I listened to Iggy Pop and I’d be like, fuck these losers at Brentwood High School,” she says with a laugh. “All these basic bitches, they don’t get me. I wanted to be that for pop music. I wanted the girls that like didn’t feel like the picture-perfect girlies to have a girl that they could be like, that’s my bitch.”
The deliberately silly lyrics and AutoTune effects on her early music led to perceptions that bothered her. “I kind of pride myself in being smart and being able to sing,” she says. “And for the whole world to think I couldn’t sing and I was stupid. Like that was hard for me. Maybe I shouldn’t have given as much of a fuck as I did, but it’s the whole world… And it’s my whole life. And so that was hard for me and I just had to kinda let time go on and let my integrity and my choices and my creativity speak for itself. But it did take a while for me to kind of finally feel like people are starting to see me holistically.”
Kesha is excited about what’s ahead. “I really want to just really get completely limitless in terms of what is possible sonically,” she says. “I just wanna see what is possible. I might just continue making pop songs ’cause I love pop songs, but I just wanna feel so fucking free.”
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone‘s weekly podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now, hosted by Brian Hiatt, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or go here for the podcast provider of your choice. Check out nine years’ worth of episodes in the archive, including in-depth interviews with artists including Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Questlove, Halsey, Missy Elliott, Dua Lipa, Neil Young, Snoop Dogg, Brandi Carlile, Phoebe Bridgers, Rick Ross, Alicia Keys, the National, Brian May, Roger Taylor, Ice Cube, Taylor Hawkins, Willow, Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Killer Mike, Julian Casablancas, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Marr, Scott Weiland, Liam Gallagher, Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, John Legend, Donald Fagen, Charlie Puth, Phil Collins, Justin Townes Earle, Stephen Malkmus, Sebastian Bach, Tom Petty, Eddie Van Halen, Kelly Clarkson, Pete Townshend, Bob Seger, the Zombies, and Gary Clark Jr. And look for dozens of episodes featuring genre-spanning discussions, debates, and explainers with Rolling Stone‘s critics and reporters.
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