Now on her third album, Tasty serves up yet more evidence that Kelis Rogers is someone who the likes of poor misguided Britney should be taking grinds in sassiness from.
Few can pull off sexed-up cool better than the woman who is still probably best known for making men everywhere shudder with the “I hate you so much right now!” of ‘Caught Out There’.
A mix of R’n’B, rootsy garage and hip-hopped soul, this album also highlights her taste in collaborators, with the Missy Elliott’s younger sister freak-pop of ’Milkshake’ reminding us that the Neptunes were experimenting with Kelis long before Mr. Timberlake got his mitts on them.
The studio geek-geniuses also feature on two of the album’s best moments, the laidback groove of ‘Sugar Honey Ice Tea’ and the excellent bruised soul of ‘Rolling Through The Hood’, which has her voicing her hurt after seeing her fella acting the horndog. Another high point is provided by the brilliant space reggae of opener ‘Trick Me’ (“Freedom to us has always been a trick/Freedom to you has always been revelling on your dick”).
Though not possessing the most overwhelming of voices, Kelis has enough cool, class and substance to pull off the different styles, alternating between emotional and sexy often in the same song.
Andre 3000’s appearance on ‘Millionaire’ reinforces the suspicion that the Outkast man is seemingly able to crank out cool tunes like candy these days, while another track see’s the steamy princess getting Prince-esque and telling boyfriend Nas “Let’s get it on in public”.
But if there is a nag it’s that, despite the fact that Kelis is down as executive producer, at times the heavy input from her collaborators doesn’t really give her a chance to put enough of her own distinctive stamp on the songs.
Some of the smoovier numbers with Raphael Saadiq in particular are a bit pedestrian, but Tasty nevertheless reinforces her rep as one of the coolest pop personalities out there.