Kelis took to social media on Thursday night as she explained why she felt disrespected by the Beyoncé sample, which was never brought to her attention.
On her Instagram account, she released a video where she claimed that Beyoncé knows or ought to know her actions are offensive, and she also called out Pharrell Williams, who she also blamed for being involved.
Kelis was bashed by fans of the “Brown Skin Girl” artist on Thursday morning after she commented on the news of the sample where she accused Beyoncé of not having “integrity” and “no soul.”
She had shared in a comment section of a fan page that she became aware of the sample just like that everyone else, and in another comment, she claimed that the sample of her creativity without her permission was “theft.”
Beyoncé’s fans did not take too lightly to the comments, and many of them told Kelis she should be grateful an artist of such caliber was putting her in a song.
Kelis, however, pushed back against the comments in a video she shared on her Instagram account.
“It’s not about me being jealous. Jealous of someone using my song? That’s the dumbest, most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard,” Kelis said.
“It has to do with the fact that, from one artist to another, you should have the decency and common sense and the courtesy to call,” she added.
She continued, “The issue is, not only are we female artists, Black female artists in an industry — there’s not that many of us. We’ve met each other, we know each other, we have mutual friends. It’s not hard. She can contact, right?”
She also lashed out at Pharrell Williams, who reportedly owns her masters and with whom she has had issues, and claimed that both artists were disrespectful to her.
“The reality is that it’s frustrating. I have the right to be frustrated,” she said in the first video she released. “Why did no one have the human decency to call and be like ‘Yo, hey, [I’d] would like to use your record’… Pharrell knows better. This is a direct hit at me. He does this all the time, it’s very petty,” she said.
“The reason why I’m annoyed is because I know it was on purpose. This was an on-purpose, direct hit,” she added.
Kelis also corrected fans that her song “Energy,” released in 1999, which the Roc Nation artist sampled for her new track named “Get Along With You,” is not a collaboration even though she apparently received credits on the track.
“It’s called thievery because… the definition of collaboration means that we are working together,” she said before adding, “there’s no working together if you are not even checking to see if everything’s cool.”
Kelis also called out Beyoncé for being a hypocrite as she projects herself as a beacon of empowerment.
“The reality is, all of this female empowerment, it only counts if you really do it,” she said. “If you’re really living it and walking the walk. Don’t just talk the talk.”
“I think that really something needs to change. And this just might be the fuel that I needed to actually do it,” Kelis said as she highlighted that using other artists songs without permission has become commonplace and has to stop.
Beyoncé nor her label has commented on the controversy regarding the track. Her album also appears on track to be released on July 29.
