Back in 1994, 15-year-old teenager Kelis Rogers from Harlem was in an all-girl group called BLU. The letters stood for Black Ladies United, but according to Kelis, this was "a lie from the pit of hell". It it is fair to say that they did not get on, and as experimental bands made up of angry teenagers who can't stand each other are often wont to do, they eventually went their separate ways.
It is now 2001, and Kelis picks up the story.
"There was me – I was the one with the style – another girl with the real good voice and this other one just added... I don't know what. Nothing. So this other girl clearly had the better voice but she just looked like shit. She had a horrible attitude, she was so obnoxious and she hated me, really hated me because I was the speaker for the group and I looked the best. God," she drawls, practically spitting out the word, "She really, really hated me."
So what happened to her?
Kelis throws back her head and lets out a roar of laughter. "Do you know," she whispers, "this is so funny. I was walking down the street with my homegirl in New York when I saw this girl, hadn't seen her for years. She had the exact same bad weave in her hair – it always looked terrible – and I tapped her on the back and was like, "Hi, remember me? What are you up to?" She looked, like, totally horrified, mumbled something then, like, had the front to ask me what I was doing these days. It was priceless."
"I see you when you walked in, stealin' all the light..." Good Stuff, summer 2000›
These days, to answer bad weave, the 21-year-old is an international rock star and fashion muse to Matthew Williamson, one of the coolest, most talented young designers on the planet, is the recipient of a Brit Award for Best International Newcomer and is best known for her vociferous smash hit, Caught Out There, which propelled her into the Top Ten, an outstandingly beautiful and energetic bundle of rainbow curls, bubblegum and luminous string vests.
Good Stuff, with its thumping bassline and no-messin' lyrics ("I can love you in one million ways – if you don't like it send it back in 30 days") and the dark, harmonious Get Along With You made it impossible to categorise her sound – was she R&B, hip-hop or rock? The answer is all three, and this was no more evident than at her one-off gig at London's Astoria which saw her perform a resonant yet somehow enchanting versions of The Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and The Doors' Come On Baby Light My Fire as well, of course, as her own songs. At one point she invites six kids from the audience up on stage to dance with her. The only boy up there starts singing along with her in unison (though he was without a microphone, which is probably just as well) then, fuelled no doubt by too much Coca-Cola caffiene and an admirable sense of bravado, he decides he's grown tired of holding slightly left of centre stage and puts his hands on Kelis's hips, runs them down her thighs then rubs up against her conga-stylee to the rapturous applause of the sickeningly envious audience. This goes on for around five whole minutes and boy, is he lapping up the attention. And who can blame him? If his mother doesn't have to put his jeans and bedsheets through a boil wash this morning I'll eat my feathered cap.
Backed by an incredibly talented band – whom, save for the drummer, were all women – Kelis simply blew the place apart, bounding around on stage in a purple and white paint-splattered denim skirt and top so tight I imagine they were laid on the floor and she simply rolled into them. Black and red Nike hi-tops, huge shades and a hairstyle which made her look like a punk lion completed the look. She could wear potato peelings and look incredible. What's more, in a world where the majority of young women on the music scene look half-starved, with stick thin limbs and ridiculously amplified chests, Kelis looks like God intended, though admittedly he must have been feeling particularly generous the day he created her.
St. Martin's Lane Hotel, London. It is 11.15am on a Saturday morning in July and Kelis is, according to her PR, "probably still asleep and possibly quite grumpy." She has spent the last two weeks in a whirlwind of promotion for her new single and forthcoming album, and is understandably exhausted. She is due to fly back to New York this afternoon after a photoshoot, and wants nothing more than to get back to her home in Harlem and go to bed, though 'she might go shopping in London first if she has time'. I find it hard to feel sorry for a girl whose afternoon consists of having her photo taken, shopping and boarding a plane to New York, but give a convincing sympathetic nod anyway.
Kelis is not up, but she is awake, which is a start. A mass of black, brown and blond curls tied up in a Louis Vuitton grafitti headscarf poke out from under the duvet as she comes to life. She mumbles something incomprehensible, and seconds later is reaching out for the cup of tea handed to her by her make-up artist.
The covers move and Kelis's face appears, eyes still shut. She takes a sip of tea and motions for me to sit on the bed. This is weird. I mean, I've woken up a superstar and now I'm sitting on her bed. I feel like a cross between a star-struck teenager and her mum. Dressed in cut-off sweat pants and a grey T-shirt, she looks stunning, despite protestations that she is 'a mess'. On her left hand she wears a huge pale green rock, a ring of little material but great sentimental value which once belonged to her great-grandmother.
Her make-up artist tidies up around her, arranging a mass of jewellery into neat rows and throwing in the bin half-eaten Kit Kats, a few empty Coke bottles and the biggest clue to Kelis's NYC roots, an empty bottle of Snapple Iced Tea. A pair of dirty socks, make-up, a tub of face cream, and a flesh-coloured thong are strewn around the room. Out of the corner of my eye I spy her wardrobe and can hardly contain my excitement. I point to what looks like a bundle of rags and ask her what it is.
"This is my kinda dress thing which my friend made for me," she explains, holding up what looks like half a Scouts uniform and a tablecloth. Hang on, it is half a Scouts uniform.
(It won't translate well on to paper but suffice to say when she appeared on stage for the second set this bundle of rags was transformed into a funky, innovative and totally cool backless dress. Her perfectly toned flesh peeked out from the sides of the front of a Scouts shirt. The sleeves were fanned and flopped around her shoulders like feathers. The ensemble was held together by red um, rags, with blue and white cotton criss-crossing her back. Still with me? The blue and white striped, diagonally cut skirt skimmed her pert backside and clung on to her hips like it was made for her. Which, of course, it was. Navy knee socks, adidas trainers, a string of giant pearls and yellow aviator shades completed the look. It takes some doing but fair play to her, she looked fantastic.)
I reach out and have a feel. It's an odd outfit and no mistake, but I kind of nod as though I understand how it's going to work and she puts it back. Also on the floor is a copy of the new CD. She shoves it in her Walkman and hands over the headphones.
"It's called Wanderland. That's with an 'A'. She spells it out.
What does that mean?
"I just like it. I was sittin' around talkin' and it came out, I said, 'That's it, I'm callin' it Wanderland. It's a natural progression to Kaleidoscope and I think it's better than Kaleidoscope but then it should be, it's my second album. It's different, but I can't explain how because music's hard to explain, right?"
Right. If Kaleidoscope blew Kelis on to the music scene with the force of a town-shattering typhoon, Wanderland brings her in slowly but surely on the back of a tank. She's still shouting a bit but it's a sophisticated kind of rant, and on Shooting Stars, a perfect summer wind-the-window-down R&B track she calms right down. Her voice, I think, has become stronger. Put it this way, watching her live you'll hear her hitting all the notes that Mariah Carey can without a) sounding like a cat that's just been stepped on or b) going into rehab, which is just as well because Kelis is currently touring Europe with U2, which seems a strange combination – a bit like pairing up Rolf Harris with Slipknot.
She roars with laughter, slapping her caramel thighs and throwing her head back. Those bonkers curls have a life of their own and are still bouncing around after she's stopped laughing. "Oh Lord," she hollers, "That's (so) funny. But it's not like that, not exactly. I think it's great, I love U2. I really do."
How did it all come together then? Did his people call your people, your people call his people and then you found a window, something like that? "I heard Bono saw me and just kinda wanted me to do the tour. We set it up, that was that, pretty much."
Doesn't he have a thing for you?
"For me? Well..." she blushes, which indicates the affirmative. "Uh, I guess he might, but I know he has a bit of a thing for black women," she continues, steering the conversation away from herself. "He's really into Beyonce (Destiny's Child supremo). You can't blame him, she's real pretty," she says, matter-of-factly, as her make-up artist deftly applies her mascara and eyeshadow from behind her head. We chat about phobias (she hates rodents), mascara (she favours Helena Rubenstein) and men ("I always get really short guys or ones who want me to beat up on 'em") then abruptly, she stops.
"You know what?" she says, rhetorically. "When I first heard Bono wanted me to open the show for U2 I'm like, wow. I was totally amazed. I mean, do you know how big U2 are? They're like, massive. I'm so excited, so happy about it, even though I know most people will turn up about five minutes before the end of my set," she laughs, jumping up from the chair and heading to the bathroom to take a shower. "That's OK, though," she shouts, "Because I know they won't wanna listen to me."
For once, Kelis is wrong, but I suspect she knows it – she's the good stuff.
