Kelis Was Here
Kelis Was Here is the fourth studio album by American singer Kelis. It was released August 22, 2006, by Jive Records. Originally titled The Puppeteer, the album features production by Bangladesh, Raphael Saadiq, Max Martin, Sean Garrett, and Scott Storch, among others, and also features collaborations with will.i.am, Nas, Cee-Lo, Too Short, and Spragga Benz. It is Kelis' first album not to feature longtime collaborators The Neptunes. Kelis Was Here received a nomination for Best Contemporary R&B Album at the 2007 Grammy Awards.
Release and promotion
The album's lead single, "Bossy", features rapper Too Short. The song peaked at number 16 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on December 11, 2006. The second single from the album, "Blindfold Me", featuring Nas, was released solely in the United States. It failed to enter the Billboard Hot 100, while peaking at number 91 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. "Lil Star", which features Cee-Lo of the duo Gnarls Barkley, was released internationally as the album's third and final single. The track reached number three on the UK Singles Chart, earning Kelis her fifth UK top-five single as a lead artist.Due to the use of "I Don't Think So" in a promotional advertising for Big Brother Australia 2008, the song entered the Australian ARIA Singles Chart at number 49 on April 21, 2008. The following week it rose to number 29, ultimately peaking at number 27. It also reached number eight on the ARIA Urban Singles Chart.
Critical reception
Kelis Was Here received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 70, based on 23 reviews. Ann Powers from the Los Angeles Times praised its eclectic music and said that it "mines a memory of R&B as the playground of category-dismantling individualists." NME magazine wrote that it feels like "a wildly ambitious Warhol-esque art project." Kelefa Sanneh from The New York Times described the album as "typically garish and glorious", with sounds that range from "space-age hip-hop... to space-age guitar pop". Q magazine said that the album is "chock-full of surreal soul diamonds." Pitchforks Tim Finney wrote that, like Wanderland, the album is "formally varied but feels consistent—even monochrome in parts." In a review for The Observer, Peter Robinson commented that the album "occasionally misfires... but there's still sass and creativity here." MSN Music's Robert Christgau gave Kelis Was Here a one-star honorable mention, indicating "a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like." He cited "Blindfold Me" and "What's That Right There" as highlights, and quipped, "Good for sex and not much else, which in a fantasy object is plenty."In a mixed review, Slant Magazine critic Preston Jones said that, although it is "an intriguing mishmash of sounds, beats, and vocal affectations", the album is "far too long" and lacks a song on-par with "Milkshake". Chris Salmon of The Guardian wrote that without the Neptunes, "contributors such as Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am and Shondrae reject all subtlety for songs that caricature Kelis as sexy, bolshy and not much else. The results are shallow and unconvincing, driven by the kind of brash holler and breathy schmaltz you would expect from J-Lo or Pussycat Dolls." Mikael Wood of Spin said that Kelis "consolidates" her previous "allure" and "turns up sex, turns down sass". Andy Kellman of AllMusic felt that it lacks first-rate material and "the range of emotions to match the varied backdrops." Quentin B. Huff of PopMatters argued that "he songs are individually good, but don't really sound like they should have been grouped together on an album."
The album was nominated for Best Contemporary R&B Album at the 2007 Grammy Awards, but lost out to Beyoncé's B'Day.
Commercial performance
Kelis Was Here debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200 with 58,000 copies sold in its first week, becoming Kelis' highest-peaking album on the chart to date. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album had sold 160,000 copies in the United States as of May 2010.The album debuted at number 41 on the UK Albums Chart, selling 6,709 copies in its first week. It was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry on September 29, 2006, and by May 2010, it had sold 32,083 copies in the United Kingdom.
Track listing
Notes- signifies a co-producer
- "What's That Right There" contains a sample from " Knee Deep", as performed by Funkadelic.
Personnel
Musicians
- Kelis – vocals
- Too Short – vocals
- will.i.am – drum programming ; clavinet, Moog bass ; synth, drums ; vocals, keyboards
- Keith Harris – keyboards ; Rhodes guitar ; additional keyboards, Moog bass
- Printz Board – trumpet
- George Pajon Jr. – guitar
- Chuck Prada – percussion
- Raphael Saadiq – bass, guitar
- Bobby Ozuna – drums, turntables ; percussion
- Charles Jones – piano, keyboards
- Meneradini "Bridge" Timothee – piano, keyboards
- Cheryl Evans – background vocals
- Smoke – vocals
- Cee-Lo Green – vocals
- Lukasz Gottwald – all instruments
- Max Martin – all instruments
- Teddy "Bear" – programming, keyboards
- Joseph Edwards – choir
- Sandra Riley – choir
- Erika Schimdt – choir
- Julio Hanson – choir
- Jim Gilstrap – choir
- Kerry Paxton – choir
- Dawn Beckman – choir
- John Patrick – choir
- Jason Brown – choir
- Renee Bowers – choir
- Damon Elliott – arrangement
- Grecco Burratto – co-arrangement
- Renato Brasa – percussion
Technical
- Bangladesh – production ; recording
- Sean Garrett – co-production ; production
- Doug Wilson – recording
- Charles McCrorey – recording
- Too Short – recording
- John Frye – mixing
- will.i.am – production
- Padraic Kerin – recording
- Joe Peluso – engineering assistance ; mix engineering assistance
- Ethan Willoughby – mixing
- Raphael Saadiq – production
- Jake and the Phatman – co-production
- Danny Romero – recording, mixing
- John Tanksley – Pro Tools engineering
- James Tanksley – Pro Tools engineering assistance
- Wesley Morrow – production coordination
- Polow da Don – production
- Brian Sumner – recording
- Brian Stanley – mixing
- Mike Makowski – mixing assistance
- Cool & Dre – production
- Robert "Brizz" Brisbane – recording
- Phil Tan – mixing
- Josh Houghkirk – mixing assistance
- Scott Storch – production
- Jason "Poo Bear" Boyd – co-production
- Conrad Golding – recording
- Marc Lee – recording
- Wayne "The Brain" Allison – recording
- Vadim Chislov – recording assistance
- James Roach – recording assistance
- Fabian Marasciullo – mixing
- Chad Jolley – mixing assistance
- Knobody – production
- Tatsuya Sato – recording
- Kevin Crouse – recording
- Neal Pogue – mixing
- Jean-Marie Horvat – mixing
- Colin Miller – mixing assistance
- Cee-Lo Green – production
- Ben H. Allen – recording
- Serban Ghenea – mixing
- John Hanes – Pro Tools engineering ; additional Pro Tools engineering
- Tim Roberts – Pro Tools engineering assistance
- Max Martin – production
- Dr. Luke – production
- Darien Gap – mixing
- Damon Elliott – production
- Teddy "Bear" – co-production
- Renson Mateo – recording
- Nathan Connelly – recording assistance
- Dave "Hard Drive" Pensado – mixing
- The Blitzburg Group – mixing assistance
- Dave Mattix – recording assistance
- Chris Athens – mastering
- Kelis – executive production
- Mark Pitts – executive production
- J. Erving – executive production
Artwork
- Denise Trotman – art direction, design
- Markus Klinko – photography
- Indrani – photography
Charts