In a new interview with the New York Times Magazine, Kesha gets candid about the early days of her career, how she grew as an artist while in rehab, and the problem with calling her “free” when she is still very much engaged in a legal battle with Dr. Luke. For her debut album Animal, Kesha says music executives had the goal of capitalizing on the fun side of her persona. “I was like, I am fun, but I’m a lot of other things.” At the time, she claims that Dr. Luke told her fun was all she was going to be for her first record. When it came time to make what would become a powerhouse hit, “TiK ToK,” Kesha says there was already a set plan to take advantage of the “fun” image. “I remember specifically him saying: ‘Make it more dumb. Make it more stupid. Make it more simple, just dumb,’” referring to a conversation with Dr. Luke, who produced and cowrote the song with his mentee Benny Blanco. When Kesha jokingly suggested lyrics like “Boys try to touch my junk. Going to get crunk. Everybody getting drunk,” she says Dr. Luke called them “perfect.”
From there, every song Kesha has recorded under Dr. Luke his label Kemosabe has been under that theme and according to Kesha, she’s never been able to reflect her whole self. “To this day, I’ve never released a single that’s a true ballad, and I feel like those are the songs that balance out the perception of you, because you can be a fun girl. You can go and have a crazy night out, but you also, as a human being, have vulnerable emotions. You have love.” According to the Times, Dr. Luke has denied these allegations through his reps.
In August, Kesha dropped her sexual assault and abuse lawsuit in California against Dr. Luke. She is still pursuing her appeal and other legal claims in New York but her main focus, according to her legal counsel Daniel Petrocelli, is to “get back to work.” At the time, Petrocelli confirmed that Kesha had delivered 28 new songs to Sony, which owns Kemosabe. Kesha has not released any new music since 2012’s Warrior.
In the NYT profile, Kesha refers to 22 new songs that were recorded at her own expense and as writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner puts it, “sitting somewhere waiting to be completed and polished and released.” One of these songs is “Rainbow,” written on a toy keyboard while Kesha was in rehab in 2014. According to Brodesser-Akner, who was able to listen to four of these songs, “Rainbow” will be your favorite if it is ever released. She writes, “It’s big and sweeping, and you can hear every instrument that Ben Folds and his associates played — it does recall a Beach Boys vibe, just as she wanted it to.” Lyrics include, “I found a rainbow, rainbow, baby. Trust me, I know life is scary, but just put those colors on, girl, and come and paint the world with me tonight.” The three other songs are described as such: “Hunt You Down” is a “real country song with banjo and some real country sentiments”; “Learn to Let It Go” has Kesha singing in a “beautiful, low voice”; “Rosé” is about an old boyfriend who has since married.
On Wednesday, hours after the NYT story went live, Kesha took to Instagram to thank the magazine for “shedding light on my life and legal situation.” She writes, “There’s nothing harder than dreaming and working and fighting for something your whole entire life, since you were 3 years old, since you could speak, and you FINALLY achieve it. And then have someone else take it away from you. My heart has a giant hole in it and is literally aching and throbbing from sadness and loss.”
Read the full profile here.
Follow Peggy on Twitter.
