Beyoncé removes Kelis sample from new ‘Renaissance’ album

Beyoncé has updated her newly released album 'Renaissance', removing the sample of Kelis’ hit ‘Milkshake’ from the track ‘Energy’.

The highly anticipated album that includes a dance music spin, was released last week and has seen artist Kelis speak out on social media claiming that she had not given permission for her 2003 track to be used on the album.

‘Milkshake’ was produced by The Neptunes duo, Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo and they are also credited by Apple Music on ‘Energy’ however, Kelis is not.

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Kelis said that the lack of credit and permission was a “direct hit” at herself adding via her product line Bounty And Full that it is “not a collab it’s theft.”

Kelis released a video speaking on the issue saying that “real beef is not only with Beyoncé” adding that: “The issue is that not only are we … black female artists in an industry [where] there’s not that many of us, we’ve met each other, we know each other, we have mutual friends – it’s not hard, she can contact [me], right?”

Kelis also spoke about Williams and Hugo naming them “the real issue” and saying: “Pharrell knows better. This is a direct hit at me [and] he does this stuff all the time… The reason I’m annoyed is because I know it was on purpose. This is not like some, ‘Oh, they were in the studio…’ No. No, this was an on-purpose, direct hit, which is very passive aggressive, it’s very petty, it’s very stupid…”

In 2020 Kelis claimed to The Guardian that she had never been fully compensated by The Neptunes by saying: “I thought it was a beautiful and pure, creative safe space, but it ended up not being that at all”.

“I was told we were going to split the whole thing 33/33/33, which we didn’t do,” adding that she was “blatantly lied to and tricked” by “the Neptunes and their management and their lawyers and all that stuff”.

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This is the second change to Beyoncé’s album since its release, with earlier this week, an ableist slur was removed from the song ‘Heated’ after backlash from fans.

In a statement according to The Independent, Beyoncé’s representatives have said that the slur was “not used intentionally in a harmful way”.

Each mention of the slur in the track has been replaced with the word “blast”.

Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Twitter