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It’s been four
long, chaotic years since Kelis first captivated the worldwide
public’s ears, eyes and imagination when she beat up a cheating
boyfriend and led an angry pack of women down the street,
screaming, “I hate you so much right now! Aaaargh!” in the video
for “Caught Out There,” the lead single from her debut album,
1999’s Kaleidoscope. Now, with the release of her hotly
anticipated new CD, Tasty, the boldly original
24-year-old siren proves that creating a provocative modern
classic not only takes time, but is also well worth the
unbearable wait. Buttressed by an indestructible foundation of
superb tracks supplied by virtually all of today’s hottest
hip-hop and R&B producers (the Neptunes, P. Diddy, Timbaland and
Raphael Saadiq, to name but a few), Tasty represents a
kind of “coming out” for Kelis. Her first two albums (the
second, 2001’s Wanderland, was never released in the
U.S.) were created under the tutelage of the Neptunes’ Pharrell
Williams and Chad Hugo, who she’s known since she was a
teenager. And although their presence is felt in five cuts on
Tasty, including the phenomenal “Milkshake,” the album is a
noticeably stronger reflection of Kelis’s distinctly pro-female
and sexually forthright vision. She attributes much of this
self-confidence to her romance with fiancé Nas (who appears on
“Attention” and no doubt inspired Tasty’s steamiest
moments), as well as to her massive popularity in Europe, where
she made the rounds on the festival circuit for nearly all of
2000 and 2001.
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