Kelis claims she was sampled without permission on Beyoncé’s new album 'Renaissance'

Kelis has claimed that her track 'Milkshake' was sampled without her permission on Beyoncé’s new album 'Renaissance'.

The track ‘Energy’ on the long-awaited album samples Kelis' 2000 song 'Milkshake', produced by Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo when known as The Neptunes.

Apple Music credits Williams and Hugo on ‘Energy’ but not Kelis.

Since discovering this, Kelis has been vocal on the issue via the Instagram of her product line Bounty And Full by commenting: “It’s not a collab it’s theft.”

“My mind is blown too because the level of disrespect and utter ignorance of all 3 parties involved is astounding. I heard about this the same way everyone else did. Nothing is ever as it seems, some of the people in this business have no soul or integrity and they have everyone fooled”. Beyoncé has not responded to Kelis’ claim.

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Last night 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…”

She has also released a second video statement. “When I was signed to [Williams’ label, Star Trak], I had the same manager that he had, and he has writing credits on my records – all my singles, coincidentally – and he never wrote a song [or] a lyric,” she said.

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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”.

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