Kelis
Tasty

THE REVIEW

Once upon a time, Kelis was mad. In 1999, she decided to shout it to the world with "Caught up there", taken from "Kaleidoscope", her debut album that earned her critical acclaim from the New Musical Express, and introduced her to the world as "...The new Lauryn Hill, only better".

The singer from Harlem, with her debut, not only demonstrated good qualities in her musical genre but also managed to shock with her aggressive and feminist attitude. These may seem like a lot of precise details, but please bear with me. In 2001, she released "Wanderland" only in Europe. The album never came out in the U.S.A. because, according to the news at the time, Kelis couldn’t find a producer willing to publish it, and not wanting to compromise, she opted for the staunch defense of being an artist. The album was a flop, and she carried on with a series of unbearable duets with people like Enrique Iglesias. And this was the first step towards degeneration. Later, she reinvented herself as a manager for P. Diddy and regained her lost credibility with high-level collaborations like Outkast and Neptunes.

After all, she doesn’t lack the credentials to rise again. Graduated from the Guardia School for the Arts, she had nonetheless received the praise of her debut, and from someone who claims never to forget her humble roots (she only calls Harlem home), who attacks American radio for airing only garbage, and who hates the intrusiveness of journalists, in short, a girl with "fire up her...," as they say around here, you expect something extraordinary.

At this point, she faces two paths: to walk again along a difficult path that would maintain her untouchable integrity in every way or to take the easier route and say goodbye to credibility. She chose the latter.

"So, now I’ll give you something to taste, and you tell me what you think, ok?" says Kelis, practically addressing a fictitious male voice and metaphorically the listener. This brings out the "Intro" which, amid the sounds of opening drinks and unwrapping candies, is worthy of the most garish Lil' Kim. This is how "Tasty" begins, Kelis’s third album released in 2003. The production is entrusted to the renowned Antonio "LA" Reid, the "godfather" of Pink and Avril Lavigne and responsible for this abomination. After the appetizer, we are served "Trick me", which seems to want to reprise the same aggressive stance against male chauvinism (...freedom to you has always been whoever landed on your dick...) but the flirtatious dances in the video and the excessively sensual voice slightly contradict the lyrics. "Milkshake", the third track, is the first single from the album accompanied by a video that in the United States is only broadcast after daytime hours where our former rebel flaunts her cleavage in the face of the entire staff of a diner. It’s pointless to dwell on the lyrics of a song that has such a title and can be summed up as a jumble of electronic sounds that are repulsive. Let’s skip over "Keep it down" which seems written for Good Charlotte (Which says it all) and let’s go straight to "In Public", a typical piece with hip hop sounds where Kelis sings with NAS, an influential figure in the rap and related environments as well as her boyfriend; in such a pair, the theme can only be sex, or rather, where to do it.

The flavorful Kelis, however, does not want to excessively disturb the esteem of those admirers who have followed her since her brilliant debut and fishes out from her second, unknown album "Flashback", a cheerful piece, perhaps the only one along with "Millionaire" which (Coincidentally) was made in collaboration with Andre 3000 and retains sounds closer to soul. Less convincing are "Glow" and "Attention" despite the presence of the capable Raphael Saadiq. And I’m glad to say that, you can’t imagine how much. The worst of artists can become unassailable through a stellar production and by summoning the crème de la crème of musicians to their court and so it goes on. It annoys you even more when you find yourself in front of a girl who, four years prior, was almost proclaiming herself the illegitimate daughter of Che and then not only chooses money but also has high demands. It’s not paranoia, I assure you. And it’s not even my poor predisposition toward hip hop, rap. But I assure you that you would think the same thing while listening to Kelis’s mediocre voice sing good hip hop productions. For dessert comes "Stick up" and for sweet "Marathon", confirmation of what I think.

"Ok, now swallow" and so it all concludes.

And no Kelis. I won’t swallow the toad....