Have Had a Much Harder Time Catching on Repeated in the Non Sequitur
MUSIC Reviews ALBUM Kelis, Food A tamer Keliswould've been hardtoimagine in1999At the time, the singer's Virgin Records debut, Kaleidoscope-acarnival of offbeat LABEL: Ninja Tune sounds carved by The Neptunes, and the home of her introductory, PRODUCERS: Dave Sitek, scorned-exanthem "Caught Out There"-wasfinding its base with Kelis the irregulars of R&B. In thespanof five albums, Kelis has hungon RELEASE DATE: April 22 those hip -girl outskirts, openly averting fame and, with it,com- mercialsuccessfor themost part,aside from 2003'ssassy come-on "Milkshake," which hitNo.3onthe Billboard Hot100.Along theway, she becameamother, married and divorcedrapperNas, and ditched the hitmaking producers largely responsible for herpastalbums' mostadventuroustones.After all that, hernewalbum, Food, her first in fouryears,feels like the aftermath ofa supernova.Despite her boundary -pushing backers -TVonthe Radio's Dave Sitek produces and British tastemaker label Ninja Tunes is releasing the album-it's not asexplosiveorforward -thinkingasits predecessors. Kelis,34, Kelis' album ha oftenseems toembodya young,sonic future without boundaries. plenty of soul, But insome waysthis is her oldest -sounding projectyet,both for but little ofhe expected sosf. better and forworse. Kelis has always drifted easily from robotic rhythmstococksure popand hip -hop, and Food is stilla scatter-shot ofgenres-funk, folk, angryblow -off like "Caught Out There." But unlike Nas'2012album Life George Michael -inspiredpop.But the foundation here is clearly throw- Is Good, thecoverof which featuresaglum Nas holding Kelis' wedding back soul, which Sitek interprets with soothing keyboard pads and dress, the split isn'tablatant narrative threadonFood. Still, it'seasy to Afrobeat brass melodies. Thearrangements arebig andopenbut also put an ex-factor filterontracks like "Rumble," abouta once-familiar calm andserene,likeavinyl record playing in the forest.
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