Motherhood is one of many gendered experiences that prove women are not more fragile, but indeed more powerful, than men, and Kelis channeled that energy into making an incredibly defiant album that allowed her to step out from under the shadow of The Neptunes and Nas. “I recorded most of the album when I was pregnant,” she said in an interview with Idolator at the end of 2009, “Being pregnant, like full of life, is really kind of the answer. Later on “Acapella,” a tightly-wound Guetta fist pumper, she’s transcendent: “It’s just me surviving alone/ Before you, my whole life was acapella.” And on “Brave,” she’s revelatory: “It wasn’t that way in the beginning/ It was ‘this way,’ it was ‘kiss me,’ come kick me and dis me, I had to give it up/ It was crazy, had a baby, he’s amazing, he saved me/ I was super cool, but now I’m super strong.”įlesh Tone is also the album where, after years of being locked in creative and personal battles with male collaborators, male-run labels, and male partners, Kelis was finally able to take control of her own narrative. “Didn’t think I needed you, never seemed to, but I’m living proof/ Now I’m brand new, rename me, baby claim me, I’ve been changed see,” she sings huskily over four-on-the-floor untz of Flesh Tone’s second single, “Fourth Of July (Fireworks). Her ‘unexpectedness’ was expectedly ballsy, and the production holds up to this day because it’s accompanied by some of Kelis’s most intimate lyrics. Executive produced by will.i.am., with production by David Guetta, Boys Noize, Tocadisco, and Benny Benassi - names now synonymous with a kind of Eurodance cheese - Flesh Tone might feel sonically dated to some, like many cultural products that are ahead of their time. Flesh Tone is the album where she went even more ‘left,’ but it stands next to Kaleidoscope as one of her most consistent releases.
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