"Nobody cried": Kelis responds to Beyoncé removing 'Milkshake' sample from Renaissance

Kelis has responded to news that an interpolation of her hit song ‘Milkshake’ has been removed from Beyoncé's Renaissance track ‘Energy’. The R&B singer claimed earlier this week that samples of her song were used without her permission or proper credit. The track has now been updated on streaming platforms to remove the interpolation, after Kelis referred to its use as “theft”.

"I heard about this the same way everyone else did," Kelis wrote on Instagram. "It's not a collaboration. It's called thievery."

Now that the interpolation has been removed from 'Energy', the 42-year-old Harlem native has returned to social media to respond to a number of comments about the incident. When one user questioned the singer's use of the word “theft”, she replied, “I called out what it was. In another comment, the singer says "I won,” and that “only a moron wouldn’t understand that”.

While the official credits for ‘Energy’ mention that ‘Milkshake’ is interpolated on it, only The Neptunes – Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo – are credited as songwriters. Kelis is named as a performer on the sample, but did not feature in the songwriting or production credits. She is also not credited as a songwriter or producer on 2003's 'Milkshake'.

The entrepreneur told her Instagram followers earlier this week about a contract she signed in the early 2000s with Pharrell Williams. She claims the contract gave Williams publishing rights to a number of her early projects, despite not having written her songs.

"Nothing is ever as it seems," she wrote. "Some of the people in this business have no soul or integrity and they have everyone fooled." In 2020, she publicly stated that she did not make any money from her first two albums after being "blatantly lied to and tricked" by the Neptunes.

Removing the 'Milkshake' interpolation is the second change Beyoncé has made to her album Renaissance since its release. On Monday, it was announced that she would be removing a derogatory lyric from her track 'Heated'. A slur - originally used to discuss spastic paralysis - was used in the song, resulting in backlash from disability charities and advocates who labeled the lyric "ableist" and "offensive."

Kelis continued to respond to Instagram comments today. One user wrote, "You happy Beyoncé took the sample off?? Cry baby," prompting Kelis to respond, “Yes I am actually. Nobody cried.”