Kesha

• 1. Introduction

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  Kesha Rose Sebert was born on the 1st of March 1987, in Los Angeles, and by the time she was 22 years old her debut single had broken the record for the highest sales week for a single by a female artist since digital download tracking began in 2003. That single, "Tik Tok", sold 610,000 digital downloads in a single week and eventually moved over 14 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling digital single in history at the time. Before that could happen, a kid in Nashville was writing songs with her mother at the kitchen table, dropping out of high school to chase a music career in Los Angeles, and working as a waitress to pay the bills while she waited for someone to take a chance on her.

  The story that follows asks how a child raised on welfare payments and food stamps became one of the best-selling recording artists of the 2000s, what happened when a legal battle with her producer took years of her career away, and how she came out the other side with a Grammy-nominated album and, eventually, her own independent record label.

• 2. Nashville Roots

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  Pebe Sebert moved her family from Los Angeles to Nashville in 1991 after landing a new publishing deal for her songwriting. Pebe was herself a professional songwriter who co-wrote the 1978 single "Old Flames Can't Hold a Candle to You" with Hugh Moffatt for Joe Sun, a song that Dolly Parton later made famous on her 1980 album Dolly, Dolly, Dolly. She raised Kesha and Kesha's older brother Lagan as a single mother, and the family relied on welfare payments and food stamps. When Kesha was still an infant, Pebe would sometimes take her onstage during performances because there was nobody else to look after her.

  Pebe noticed Kesha singing and encouraged her. She brought both children to recording studios, and Kesha absorbed the craft. By the time Kesha was 16, the two of them co-wrote a song together called "Stephen". Kesha tracked down David Gamson, a producer she admired from his work with Scritti Politti, who agreed to produce it. She also played trumpet and later saxophone in her school marching band, and attended Franklin High School and then Brentwood High School, describing herself as a diligent student who simply didn't fit in. Her unconventional style, which included homemade purple velvet pants and purple hair, did not endear her to classmates.

  Max Martin received one of Kesha's demos from Samantha Cox, senior director of writer and publisher relations at Broadcast Music Incorporated. Billboard later described one of those demos as a gorgeously sung self-penned country ballad and a second as a trip-hop track where Kesha rapped ad lib for a minute after running out of lyrics. It was the latter that attracted attention. Martin convinced her to leave school at 17 and return to Los Angeles to pursue music. She earned a near-perfect SAT score and was offered a scholarship to Barnard College, an affiliate of Columbia University, but chose music instead.

• 3. The Long Wait

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  In 2005, at age 18, Kesha signed with the music publishing company Prescription Songs. Her name appeared on Paris Hilton's single "Nothing in This World" as a background vocalist, a credit she would not have imagined headlining in a few short years. She then signed with David Sonenberg's management company, DAS Communications Inc., in 2006. The arrangement gave DAS one year to secure a major label deal in exchange for 20 percent of her music income. While waiting, she co-wrote Australian pop group the Veronicas' single "This Love" with producer Toby Gad. She paid rent by working as a waitress. It was during this period that she began stylizing her name as Ke$ha, describing the dollar sign as an ironic gesture toward her financial situation.

  In 2008, she appeared in the music video for her friend Katy Perry's single "I Kissed a Girl" and sang background vocals for Britney Spears on "Lace and Leather". A deal with Warner Bros. Records fell through because of her existing contract with Kemosabe. She then parted ways with DAS and returned to Dr. Luke as her producer. Her break came in early 2009 when she appeared on rapper Flo Rida's number-one single "Right Round". According to everyone present, the collaboration was an accident: she had simply walked into the recording session, and Flo Rida wanted a female voice on the track. She was not credited on the United States release and collected no money for the feature. She also refused to appear in the video. She told men's magazine Esquire that she wanted to make a name for herself on her own terms.

  After failing to negotiate deals with Lava Records and Atlantic Records in 2009, she finally signed a multi-album deal with RCA Records. She had spent six years building material for her debut album and wrote approximately 200 songs in the process.

• 4. Polarizing Superstardom

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  Animal was certified Platinum in the United States and had sold two million copies worldwide by September 2010. "Tik Tok" spent nine weeks at number one in the country, the longest run at the top for a debut single by a female artist since Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" in 1977. Subsequent singles "Blah Blah Blah", "Your Love Is My Drug", and "Take It Off" each reached the top ten in Australia, Canada, and the United States.

  Kesha's deliberately unpolished aesthetic quickly made her a polarizing figure. Some critics called her output unsophisticated; others felt she was manufactured. She described her stage persona as her own personality "times ten". In November 2010, Animal was re-released with a companion extended play called Cannibal. The lead single from Cannibal, "We R Who We R", debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100. By June 2011, Kesha had sold almost 21 million digital single downloads in the United States alone, and Billboard named her Hot 100 Artist of 2010.

  In February 2011, she launched her first headlining world tour, the Get Sleazy Tour, which sold out its first leg and expanded to a second. The tour spanned three continents. She co-wrote "Till the World Ends" for Britney Spears and appeared on the remix alongside Nicki Minaj. Rock singer Alice Cooper, who met her at the 2010 Grammy Awards, asked her to write lyrics for and perform a devil character on his duet track "What Baby Wants", on his 2011 album Welcome 2 My Nightmare. Rock artists were paying attention to something in her that pop critics were dismissing.

  In May 2010, her former managers at DAS Communications Inc. filed a lawsuit seeking $14 million in commissions, alleging she had extended their deadline and then squeezed them out. Kesha countersued in October, citing the California Talent Agencies Act and arguing that DAS had acted as an unlicensed talent agent in California, where only licensed agents can procure work. The case settled in 2012. She also held a benefit concert on the 16th of June 2010, raising close to $70,000 for victims of the 2010 Tennessee floods in her hometown Nashville.

• 5. Rock Credibility and Warrior

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  Warrior, released on the 30th of November 2012, was built while Kesha was still on her own headlining tour in 2011. The album included productions from Max Martin and a song from Wayne Coyne, lead singer of the Flaming Lips, who reached out after hearing she was a fan. To coincide with the album's release, she published an illustrated autobiography called My Crazy Beautiful Life through Touchstone Books in November 2012.

  The first single, "Die Young", debuted at number thirteen on the Billboard Hot 100 and eventually peaked at number two. The second single, "C'Mon", peaked at number 27, ending her string of consecutive top ten hits. A third single, "Crazy Kids", peaked at number 40 in the United States but reached number two in South Korea and number five in Belgium. Warrior used considerably less auto-tune than her debut and contained piano and guitar-driven ballads including "Love into the Light", "Wonderland", and "Past Lives" that showcased unprocessed vocals.

  Alice Cooper told Billboard: "I immediately looked at her and went, 'This girl is not a pop diva. She's a rock singer.' She would much rather be the female Robert Plant than the next Britney Spears." Rolling Stone called Warrior Kesha's rock manifesto. Kesha said she had wanted to pursue an even more rock-oriented sound but was prevented by her label. The A.V. Club credited her as a capable vocalist and songwriter. The Washington Post called the album "pure fun".

  She and the Flaming Lips had discussed releasing a full-length collaborative album called Lipsha, but the project was cancelled in the winter of 2013. Kesha messaged a fan saying the cancellation was out of her control and that she had wanted to release the material even for free. On the 7th of October 2013, she and Pitbull released the collaboration "Timber", which became her third number-one and tenth top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100.

• 6. The Legal Years

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  On the 3rd of January 2014, Kesha checked into Timberline Knolls Residential Treatment Center in Lemont, Illinois, for treatment of bulimia nervosa. Her mother confirmed the diagnosis and alleged that Dr. Luke had told Kesha to lose weight after signing her, comparing the shape of her body to a refrigerator. Kesha completed her treatment on the 6th of March 2014, after two months. She dropped the stylized Ke$ha moniker and returned to using her birth name.

  In October 2014, Kesha sued Dr. Luke for sexual assault and battery, sexual harassment, gender violence, emotional abuse, and violation of California business practices, alleging that the conduct had occurred over ten years of working together. The lawsuit proceeded for nearly a year before she sought a preliminary injunction to release her from Kemosabe Records. On the 19th of February 2016, New York Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich ruled against that request. On the 6th of April 2016, Kornreich dismissed the case, saying that even if the allegations of sexual assault were accepted as true, the five-year statute of limitations had run out on the two most specific rape allegations, one from 2005 and one from 2008. Dr. Luke had filed counterclaims alleging breach of contract and defamation.

  During this period Kesha performed wherever the legal situation allowed. She appeared at Zedd's slot at the 2016 Coachella festival to perform "True Colors", her first major public performance since the legal battle began. She covered Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" at the 2016 Billboard Music Awards on May 22. She performed at Pittsburgh Pride on the 11th of June 2016, and then launched the Kesha and the Creepies: Fuck the World Tour, which ran from the 23rd of July 2016, in Las Vegas to the 21st of July 2017, in Aurora, Illinois, including dates in China.

  The case was settled out of court on the 22nd of June 2023. In a joint statement, both parties confirmed the settlement, which came a month before trial was set to begin. Kesha said she did not recall everything from the night of the alleged assault and expressed that she was looking forward to moving on. Dr. Luke continued to deny her original claims. The Court of Appeals in New York had ruled that Dr. Luke was a limited public figure, which would have required him to prove malice on Kesha's part had the case gone to trial. Details of the financial settlement were not disclosed.

• 7. Rainbow and Recovery

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  On the 6th of July 2017, Kesha released "Praying", the lead single from her third studio album. The single sold over 140,000 copies in Australia, where it was certified 2x Platinum and charted at number six. It reached number 22 in the United States and number 11 in Canada. Rainbow followed on the 11th of August 2017, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200, her second chart-topping album in the United States. Critics offered universal acclaim, praising the album's feminist angle, its range across genres, and Kesha's vocal performance. The album received nominations for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, her first Grammy nominations.

  At the 2018 Grammys, she performed "Praying" alongside other prominent women in music in support of the Time's Up movement, the advocacy group against sexual harassment. Her documentary film Rainbow: The Film, released on Apple Music on the 10th of August 2018, chronicled her time in rehab and the making of the album.

  In September 2018, she released "Here Comes the Change" as the lead single for On the Basis of Sex, a biographical film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In October 2018, she co-wrote and performed on "Safe" with her younger brother Sage Sebert and rapper Chika as an homage to the victims of the Parkland high school shooting. In February 2019, she hosted a four-day cruise called Kesha's Weird and Wonderful Rainbow Ride aboard the Norwegian Pearl, sailing from Tampa, Florida to Nassau, Bahamas, with guests including Jonathan Van Ness and Betty Who.

  High Road, her fourth studio album, was released on the 31st of January 2020. The fifth headlining tour planned to support it was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. In February 2020, her 2010 promotional single "Cannibal" went viral on TikTok and became a top-40 single in Canada nearly a decade after its original release.

• 8. Independence and Period

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  Gag Order, released on the 19th of May 2023, was produced by Rick Rubin and fulfilled Kesha's five-album contract with Kemosabe Records. The album drew from art pop, experimental, and psychedelic electronic genres, and its lyrics confronted the trauma and depression produced by years of litigation. On the 18th of December 2023, seven months after the album's release, Variety reported that she had parted ways with Kemosabe Records and distributor RCA as their contract expired. She also split amicably from Vector Management and released a statement thanking her former manager, Jack Rovner.

  In early 2024, Kesha taught a two-and-a-half week songwriting course called "The Alchemy of Pop Music" at the Esalen Institute. On the 29th of June 2024, she announced her new single "Joyride", released on July 4 through her own label, Kesha Records, which had entered a distribution deal with Alternative Distribution Alliance, owned by Warner Music Group, in September 2024. "Joyride" was her first song to chart on the UK Singles Chart since 2017 and accumulated over 100 million streams on Spotify.

  Period, her sixth studio album and first fully independent release, came out on the 4th of July 2025. On the 8th of July 2025, she surprise-released a deluxe version with three new songs, including "Attention!" and a new version of "Boy Crazy" featuring Jade of British girl group Little Mix. The album explored themes of liberation, identity, and creative independence, incorporating elements of pop, disco, and electronic music.

  On the 2nd of October 2025, she signed a new management deal with Red Light Management, represented by Mary Hillard Harrington. The Freedom Tour, thirty-two concerts across Ireland, North America, and the United Kingdom, is scheduled to run from May 23 to the 30th of August 2026, with a date at BST Hyde Park alongside Pitbull.