Kelis says Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo "stole" the profits from her first albums
Aux Features Kelis
Kelis’ 1999 debut was born of righteous fury and an infallible beat. “Caught Out There” was an inescapable, empowering hit that had women screaming, “I HATE. YOUSOMUCHRIGHTNOW” in catharsis (as well as young girls, who may not have fully understood the context, but still harbored a passion for screaming). Considering the song’s near-constant radio play, you would assume that the versatile songstress would have been rolling in the royalties. But according to a recent interview with The Guardian, she claims that she did not profit nearly as much from her first two albums as she should have. Both were produced by then-close friends Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, also known as the production duo The Neptunes. While she doesn’t specify how the money from album sales and radio play was distributed, she does allege that the original deal to split the profits three ways was not honored by the producers.
Kelis tells The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman the following:
“I was told we were going to split the whole thing 33/33/33, which we didn’t do,” she says. Instead, she says, she was “blatantly lied to and tricked”, pointing specifically to “the Neptunes and their management and their lawyers and all that stuff”. As a result, she says she made nothing from sales of her first two albums, which were produced by the Neptunes. But she did not notice for a few years, because she was making money from touring, “and just the fact that I wasn’t poor felt like enough”, she says. She sighs: “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.’”
The financial fallout wasn’t enough to totally decimate their creative partnership. For Kelis’ third album, Tasty, Williams and Hugo were still tapped for a number of tracks, including the still-memed juggernaut “Milkshake.” However, Kelis notes that she “could tell they were really offended” when she chose to also work with other producers. She has seen seen Williams at industry events since and assured Freeman that she’s not angry, but hasn’t forgotten the matter. “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 … 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.”
As of now, Williams nor Hugo have responded to Kelis’ claims.
16 Comments
Maybe she should… charge… them. Get it? I’ll show myself out.
They probably did give her her share, but deducted the advance that is typically given to cover the costs of recording, marketing, etc. It’s pretty typical in record contracts, which are shitty and misleading. Hopefully, she learned to read binding contracts before signing them.
Tasty is so good. Insecure soundtrack good.
I mean, this shit is the whole point of contracts (and getting a lawyer to read them).
forever missing the point
I understand being mad about a verbal contract not being honored, especially amongst s0-called friends, but something would have had to been signed, too. So why didn’t she or her lawyer(s) fight for her side then? It’s a valid question.
A valid question in terms of what?
What’s the point?
That her supposed friends took advantage of her.
I mean, yeah, that’s what the article is about.Is your argument that people in the comments should only discuss what the articles are obviously about?
That is what the article is about. Good for you! No, that is not my argument.
Well, don’t keep us waiting in the dark. We’re all anxiously waiting on the edges of our seats to hear your brilliant argument.
I already said what it is, at *your* prompting no less. Scroll the fuck up. I’m not sure what else it is you want here. What the fuck is *your* argument? Because it sure seems like you want to argue about something.
You replied to OP, starting the argument you obviously wanted to have. If you weren’t implying that the OP shouldn’t have made the comment or should have been commenting about something else, then I’m not sure why you replied to them at all (other than perhaps wanting to argue with them).Feel free to have the last word.
Thanks for the recap! Really appreciate you adding your two cents, very valuable!
A contract is still a contract. Her bad for not reading the fine print or having someone look into it..