Kelis Rogers, known mononymously as Kelis, is an American singer-songwriter and chef.
65 Facts About Kelis
2.
Kelis then began working with music producers Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, known as The Neptunes, which ultimately resulted in her being signed to Virgin Records in 1998.
3.
Kelis released her debut studio album Kaleidoscope with Virgin Records on December 7,1999.
4.
Kelis left her label Virgin Records after its follow-up Wanderland received little sales attention and no US release until 2019.
5.
Kelis took a hiatus from music after its release, venturing into culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu.
6.
Kelis has been recognized at the Brit Awards, Q Awards, NME Awards, and Grammy Awards ceremonies.
7.
Kelis has sold 6 million records worldwide and has had particular success in the United Kingdom, where ten of her singles have peaked within the top ten of the UK Singles Chart.
8.
Kelis's first name is a portmanteau of her father's name Kenneth and her mother's name Eveliss.
9.
Kelis's father Kenneth was an African-American jazz musician and Pentecostal minister and was formerly a professor at Wesleyan University.
10.
Kelis's mother Eveliss is a Chinese-Puerto Rican fashion designer who inspired Rogers to pursue her singing career.
11.
Kelis has three sisters, Rogers being the third-born of the four girls.
12.
In 1997, Kelis provided background vocals on "Fairytalez", a track on hip hop group Gravediggaz's album The Pick, the Sickle and the Shovel.
13.
Kelis has said that Williams was credited as a songwriter on songs of hers that he had not written.
14.
Kelis began recording her debut album Kaleidoscope in mid-1998 and was finished within a year.
15.
The Fader later referred to Wanderland as "Kelis's long lost masterpiece".
16.
In 2002, Kelis recorded "So Be It" for the Red Hot Organization's Fela Kuti tribute CD Red Hot and Riot, from which all proceeds were donated to AIDS-awareness charities.
17.
Kelis hosted the DanceStar USA Awards ceremony at that year's Winter Music Conference.
18.
Kelis found mainstream success in the US later in 2003 with her Hot Dance Club Play number one, Billboard Hot 100 top three single "Milkshake"; this single helped to propel her third album Tasty to gold status in the US, where it peaked at number 27 on the Billboard 200 and has sold 533,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
19.
The Dallas Austin-produced "Trick Me", the album's second single, went to the top 10 in many European countries during mid-2004; it did not garner success in the US in the absence of promotion by Jive Records, the label Kelis had been transferred to after Arista Records folded at the time of Tastys release.
20.
Kelis' success grew in Australia, where Tasty went gold and where "Milkshake" and "Trick Me" went platinum.
21.
Kelis followed the success of the third Tasty single, the BPI silver-certified "Millionaire", with the Rockwilder-produced track "In Public", which reached number 17 on the UK chart.
22.
Also in 2004, Kelis collaborated with Bjork on a remix of the latter's track "Oceania", which appeared as a B-side to the single "Who Is It".
23.
Kelis toured as the opening act for fellow Jive artist Britney Spears's The Onyx Hotel Tour, then headlined her own tour of Australia and New Zealand.
24.
Kelis contributed a track titled "80's Joint" to the soundtrack of the 2006 dance film Step Up.
25.
Kelis Was Here was released in 2006, and it debuted and peaked at number 10 on the Billboard 200.
26.
Ford chose Kelis to help advertise the 2007 Ford Edge, and she recorded a theme song for the commercial, titled "Push It to the Edge", with help from producer Scott Storch.
27.
Also in 2008, the Kelis Was Here album track "I Don't Think So" became a top 40 hit in Australia after being used in promotion for the 2008 season of the reality series Big Brother Australia.
28.
In 2009, Kelis signed to Interscope Records via the will.
29.
Kelis said she was hesitant to sign to another major label after her experiences with Jive Records but did not want the album to be "swept under the rug with a smaller label".
30.
Kelis appears on the Mark Ronson-produced track "The Man Who Stole a Leopard" from the 2010 Duran Duran album All You Need Is Now, a song she and the band performed in a concert directed by filmmaker David Lynch.
31.
Kelis co-wrote the song "Waiting" for British pop singer Cheryl Cole's Messy Little Raindrops.
32.
Kelis then collaborated with Calvin Harris on the 2011 single "Bounce", the lead single from Harris' album 18 Months.
33.
Kelis was featured on Dan Black's single "Hearts" and Skream's "Copy Cat", the latter of which led to a dispute after Kelis alleged that Skream refused to have her appear in the music video.
34.
Kelis then signed to British independent label Ninja Tune for the release of the album Food in 2014.
35.
Breach reworked his remix of "Rumble" into "The Key", a track featuring Kelis, released as a single later in 2014.
36.
In 2015, Kelis featured on veteran disco producer Giorgio Moroder's album Deja Vu, singing on the track "Back and Forth".
37.
Kelis contributed vocals to the dance track "My Milkshake", a rework of her 2003 single "Milkshake" by British producer Freejak, in 2018.
38.
Kelis embarked on the Kaleidoscope 20th Anniversary Tour, a UK and European tour celebrating the 20th-anniversary release of her debut album Kaleidoscope, in March 2020, though this was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
39.
Kelis was featured on a Disclosure song titled "Watch Your Step" in 2020 and on "Deal with It", a track on Demidevil, the debut mixtape by Ashnikko, in 2021.
40.
Kelis revealed to i-D magazine in 2019 that she was working on an EP that, at the time of the interview, was intended for release in 2020; in 2021, she said an album, Dirt, would be released in 2022.
41.
Kelis released the single "Midnight Snacks" in 2021 and "Feed Them" in 2022, the latter in collaboration with the meal delivery service Daily Harvest.
42.
An interpolation of Kelis's "Milkshake" was used in the Beyonce song "Energy" on her 2022 album Renaissance.
43.
The song was updated on some streaming services to remove the interpolation after Kelis said that she was not notified nor asked for approval for the song's use.
44.
From 2006 to 2010, Kelis trained part-time as a saucier, eventually graduating from Le Cordon Bleu.
45.
Kelis had previously written an unreleased cookbook with Lauren Pesavento in 2006.
46.
In March 2014, Kelis set up a food truck to cook for attendees of the American music festival SXSW.
47.
Kelis promoted her 2014 album Food by sharing her recipes for apple farro, jerk ribs, New York vanilla bean cheesecake, and more on the Spotify app Supper.
48.
That same year, the Cooking Channel aired a cooking television series starring Kelis, titled Saucy and Sweet.
49.
In 2016, Kelis and cooking duo Le Bun opened a pop-up restaurant in London that she adapted as a food truck to tour around UK music festivals.
50.
In 2019, Kelis developed an exclusive menu with a local street food vendor for Jam on Rye Festival in London.
51.
Kelis appears in Cooked with Cannabis, a competition cooking series that Netflix launched on April 20,2020.
52.
In 2006, Kelis designed her own line of fashion accessories, titled Cake.
53.
In 2017, Kelis joined BBC One's singing contest Pitch Battle as a judge of the competition with Gareth Malone.
54.
In 2020, Kelis competed as the Daisy in the British version of The Masked Singer, where she was eliminated in the fifth episode.
55.
Kelis met rapper Nas at an MTV Video Music Awards party in 2002; they dated for one year, became engaged in 2004, and married in January 2005.
56.
Kelis has described her relationship with Nas as physically and mentally abusive, crediting the anticipated birth of her child as a factor in her decision to end her marriage.
57.
Kelis recalled that the domestic violence incident between Rihanna and Chris Brown influenced her decision to leave Nas.
58.
Nas replied to the accusations on social media, accusing Kelis of attempting to slander him in the time of a custody battle and accusing Kelis of abusing his daughter.
59.
In March 2007, Kelis was detained by police in Miami Beach, Florida and charged with disorderly conduct.
60.
The arrest report said an operation in which officers posed as prostitutes in the South Beach nightclub district was disrupted when Kelis started screaming racial profanities at them.
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Kelis was sent to Miami-Dade County Jail and was later released on a $1,500 bond.
62.
Kelis married photographer Mike Mora in 2014, and gave birth to her second son in November 2015.
63.
Since January 2020, Kelis has been living on a remote farm outside Los Angeles that she manages.
64.
The Chicago Tribune stated that Kelis made the most of "a voice that lives in the basement".
65.
Kelis cited early Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington as major influences for the album.