Tasty "Food" Branches into Experimental Territory

By Courtesy Ninja Tune Records

Quite a bit has transpired since Kelis’s milkshakes brought the boys to the yard back in 2003. She’s released three more LPs, married and divorced hip-hop legend Nas, earned a culinary degree from Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, and starred in a cooking/reality TV show on The Cooking Channel. Yet all of this has happened without her achieving the level of pop stardom that her innuendo-laden crossover hit suggested she could and would. Though its hook infiltrated the cultural lexicon as soon as it was purred, “Milkshake” achieved millennial timelessness while leaving behind the name of the R&B songstress who served it up. As a result, the last 11 years have largely seen Kelis floating in and out of sonic universes, traversing not only her signature Neptunes-produced neo-soul but also club hip-hop, futuristic pop, and funk. Her lack of mainstream success has allowed her to be a musical chameleon, and with her artistic freedom she’s produced some very successful oddball offerings (2010’s “Flesh Tone”), but also some less cohesive stylistic mishmashes (2006’s “Kelis Was Here”). Fans of both albums, however, should find something tasty to nibble on in her newest, “Food.” Though its retro-leaning soul isn’t the bump-and-grinding Kelis of her earliest days, nor the genre-navigating aficionado of her middle career, “Food” is an album that is thoroughly Kelis from the first bite to the last.

Above all else, to be Kelis is to be completely modern. So when the album introduces “Breakfast,” a mid-tempo banger with its roots firmly entrenched in Motown soul, the listener need not be surprised when Kelis adds a dash of the 21st century, cheekily telling her lover that “maybe we’ll make it to breakfast.” In a similarly au courant manner, “Floyd” sees the newly single music-maker letting off some steam over the state of the dating scene, admitting that, “Sure I’m self-sufficient, blah blah, independent, / truthfully I got some space I want that man to fill it.” The song proceeds in this manner, with her listing her specific desires in a mate (though she “don’t do long distance”), before it opens up to an airy dreamland of a hook in which the underwhelmed Kelis, suspended in harmony, confesses, “I want to be blown away.” If “Floyd” is her searching, “Friday Fish Fry” finds her discovering exactly what she wants. Clad in an uncharacteristic southern twang, the earworm barnburner features Kelis locked in a call-and-response with a hunky-sounding male section over the euphemistic “ice cold water” that she desires.

Therein, however, lies most of the album’s weakness. Though steeped in smart, often blunt lyricism and that trademark nerve that by itself may account for Kelis’s relegation to the fringes of stardom, “Friday Fish Fry” feels a tad out of place. It’s a milder example of what the likes of “Bless the Telephone” with its folksy-pop duet and “Hooch” with its big brass bravado exemplify. Though both are quite accomplished tracks when considered individually, in the greater context of the retro-soul selection of “Food” that Kelis has served up, they confuse the sonic palette.

It’s a minor problem to have, one that can be almost completely forgiven in the light of the cohesion that marks the rest of the album. Hiccups aside, Kelis largely stays within the lines that she’s drawn for herself. And that includes singing the majority of the album in her sweet-spot five-note radius. That may sound like a dig, but it really isn’t. Her raspy croon, wrapped in the smokiness of Amy Winehouse but lacking the complete power thereof, is an aspect of her sound that, unlike many others, Kelis honed and perfected early on. She even cleverly acknowledges its limitations on “Cobbler,” teasing that her lover “makes me hit notes that I never sing.” The song reaches some pretty high territory, but Kelis taps out early, leaving backup singers to tackle the really lofty stuff. It’s for that reason that she should have thought better of “Change,” an otherwise decent track that sees her lingering for a smidgen too long in vocal regions just out of her comfort zone.

For every slight misstep like “Change,” there are far more instantly catchy and successful retro-soul servings like “Jerk Ribs” and smooth midnight snack tidbits like “Runnin’.” “Food” does not, however, come with anything even resembling an immediate calling card like “Milkshake,” and those few who are still holding out for a refill of that brand of Kelis had best push away from the table. And to be sure, there’s absolutely no shame in seeing them go. It means only more space left for the rest of us (along with the new fans this record will surely entice) to enjoy the hardy, experimental, rib-sticking fare with which Kelis is tearing up the kitchen.

—Staff writer Caleb M. Lewis can be reached at clewis01@college.harvard.edu.