Kelis Claims The Neptunes ‘Blatantly Lied And Tricked’ Her Over Writing Credits

Kelis has dropped a bomb on The Neptunes.

In a new interview with The Guardian, the 40-year-old singer discussed the beginning of her career when she often collaborated with Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo’s hugely successful production duo.

“I thought it was a beautiful and pure, creative safe space,” Kelis said of working with Williams and Hugo on her debut, “Kaleidoscope.” “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,” Kelis explained. She claimed she was “blatantly lied to and tricked,” by “The Neptunes and their management and their lawyers and all that stuff,” and maintains she made nothing from sales of her first two albums, which they both produced.

Kelis added that she didn’t notice the financial discrepancy for years between her touring revenue “and just the fact that I wasn’t poor felt like enough.” Once she noticed, she said she was told, “‘Well, you signed it.’ I’m like: ‘Yeah, I signed what I was told, and I was too young and too stupid to double-check it.’”

Writing credit on the 14 tracks that make up “Kaleidoscope” resides solely with Hugo and Williams, with the exception of “Ghetto Children” and “Suspended,” on which Kelis shares credit with the pair. On her second album, “Wanderland,” Kelis is a credited writer on nine of the album’s 14 tracks with The Neptunes, and for her third, “Tasty,” the pair have writing credits on five of its 14 tracks, sharing credit with Kelis on one of those. Her fourth album, “Kelis Was Here,” was her first to feature zero collaborations with The Neptunes.

While Kelis no longer works with Williams, she said there’s “mutual respect” between them.

“He did that thing to me that he’s notorious for, which is making a nod from the stage [to someone in the audience], so it seems like there’s mutual respect, when in reality … I’m like, ‘OK, I’m not going to yell back: You stole all my publishing!’ So you end up nodding back and everyone thinks everything’s great. Like, whatever.”
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