Kesha Serbert, better known by her former stage name Ke$ha, is a 38-year-old singer-songwriter hailing from Los Angeles, California, and is dropping an album early next month. Kesha’s career took off in 2009 after her appearance on Flo Rida’s track “Right Round.” Since then, Kesha has amassed an audience of millions, with over a staggering 46 million monthly listeners on Spotify.
Kesha generally makes pop music, with her lyrics primarily focused on themes such as partying and love. Some of Kesha’s most popular hits include “TiK ToK”, “Die Young”, “Your Love is My Drug”, and “We R Who We R.” Kesha is also featured on a few extremely popular songs, such as Pitbull’s “Timber” and Macklemore’s “Good Old Days.”
While Kesha’s songs have an upbeat, positive tone to them, Kesha’s life has definitely had its fair share of struggles. Growing up, Kesha’s father was never in the picture, and Kesha was living off of welfare and food stamps.
Interestingly enough, Kesha’s mother, who worked as a songwriter, more or less introduced Kesha to music. Ever since Kesha’s early exposure to music, she has consistently pursued her musical interests, from playing in her high school’s marching band to turning down a college scholarship to further her musical career.
From the start of her musical career, Kesha has been very hardworking, which has made her successful early on. She even landed roles as a backup vocalist for popular singers such as Britney Spears. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to most at the time, this is where Kesha’s first controversy also began.
During 2011, Kesha signed with Kemosabe Records. Dr. Luke, the person who founded Kemosabe Records, is a popular music producer who has worked with artists such as Katy Perry and Rihanna.
Kesha’s lawsuit with Dr. Luke
While it seemed everything was going smoothly in Kesha’s career, in 2014, Kesha filed a lawsuit against Dr. Luke. Kesha alleged in the lawsuit that Dr. Luke raped her in 2005 and that he emotionally abused her. Kesha later took things further and requested that she be released from her contract with Kemosabe Records.
Dr. Luke, in response to Kesha’s lawsuit, filed a defamation countersuit against Kesha, claiming that she filed the suit solely to be released from her contract ahead of time. Kesha’s request was denied in 2016 by the court.
After suffering a loss in her lawsuit, Kesha eventually moved her lawsuit from LA to New York. Both Kesha’s lawsuit and Dr. Luke’s lawsuit continued for another lengthy 7 years until both parties eventually reached a settlement.
While both parties wished each other well at the end of their official statements, it is clear that they are certainly no longer amicable with each other.
Kesha’s final statement was that “only God knows what happened that night” and that “as [she] always said, [she] cannot recount everything that happened. [she is] looking forward to closing to the door on this chapter of [her] life and beginning a new one.”
Dr. Luke’s final statement slightly discounts Kesha’s statement and is as follows: “While I appreciate Kesha again acknowledging that she cannot recount what happened that night in 2005. I am absolutely certain that nothing happened.”
Regardless of the settlement outcome, Kesha is finally free from Kemosabe Records.
After Kesha’s controversy with Dr Luke, Kesha indirectly became involved in another controversy.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs lyric on TikTok
In November 2023, lawsuits against rapper Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs were coming out, alleging Diddy was guilty of sexual harassment. One month after the first lawsuit, another woman filed a lawsuit against Diddy. In this lawsuit, the woman accused Diddy of gang raping her when she was 17.
Diddy denied the claims and stated, “sickening allegations have been made against me by individuals looking for a quick payday. Let me be absolutely clear: I did not do any of the awful things being alleged. I will fight for my name, my family, and for the truth.”
Unfortunately, going into February 2024, even more allegations came out about Diddy. This time, the main allegation was grooming under the guise of ‘making it’ in the music industry. Eventually, in May 2024, a CCTV video of Diddy surfaced in which Diddy is seen assaulting a singer signed to Diddy’s label.
Once Kesha caught wind of this, she immediately took action to reform a line on her most popular song, “TiKToK”. Kesha felt like she had to make a change to the song because of her special attachment to the song.
“TiKToK” was the first single that Kesha had ever put out, and she wanted to protect the joyful atmosphere of the song.
Before Kesha’s change, the line was ‘Wake up in the mornin’ feelin’ like P. Diddy.’ Kesha later changed the line to “Wake up in the mornin’ like f*** P. Diddy.’
Kesha originally tested the new lyric at Coachella, and is currently working on replacing the old lyric on all platforms.
What’s Kesha up to now?
In terms of other more recent Kesha news, Kesha recently dropped a new single titled “THE ONE.” This is the fifth single that Kesha has released in anticipation of her new album titled ., as in period, coming out on the 4th of July.
Coinciding with Kesha’s new album release is Kesha’s Tits Out Tour which starts on July 1st in West Valley City, Utah and ends on August 10th, in Tampa, Florida.
The offical Kesha website has all exact tour dates and additional details.
Kesha cleverly chose to release her album on independence day, celebrating her freedom from labels and highlighting the fact she is releasing her first album under a label she created.
If you happen to be unfamiliar with Kesha’s usual music then no worries, because Kesha’s new album still has a little bit of something for everyone. So far the five singles teased to be on Kesha’s album are “JOYRIDE.”, “YIPPEE-KI-YAY.”, “DELUSIONAL.”, “THE ONE.”, and “BOY CRAZY.”.
“JOYRIDE.” and”BOY CRAZY.” line up with Kesha’s usual hyperpop music, but still are slightly different from what you would expect. “DELUSIONAL.” and “THE ONE.” are slower in tempo, but are songs that are very easy to sing along to.
“YIPPEE-KI-YAY.” is also on the slower side; however, it has a strong country anthem feel to the song. The song also features rapper T-pain.
Judging from the lyrics in her recent singles as well as Kesha’s instagram posts, fans can expect to hear more of Kesha’s older style music with a bit of new spice. With flirtatious ‘boy crazy’ lyrics and amazing vocals, Kesha is back and she’s here to take over the summer with her new album.
