Kelis is an explosion of energy in rainbow-shades

Under the grey carpet of cloud spewing relentless sheets of water, meeting Kelis is like being kissed by summer’s sunshine. She’s got as much energy as attitudes and has apparently decided that dressing-less is the way to support music from her new album, ‘Wanderland’.

Her solo-show (performed during a break from the U2’s Euro-support duty) saw her on the brink of naturalism; her presenting of MOBO awards was in even more revealing mode… Is she playing the stereotypical game, toying with our perception of sexuality or simply trying to get even redundant male hormones on the go?

“I’m in my early 20s, I’m blessed and incredibly fit,” Kelis names the obvious. “I know that I’ll not look like this forever, I know I’ll be 45 and not be able to do this. When my mum was my age, she did do things with her body because she could. I toy with the image of a strong woman and a smart woman and that’s what I want to have covered. It’s funny because a lot of women have issues with sisters who overtly expose themselves. Not because of the exposing but the attitude than comes behind it. Wearing skimpy clothing, I feel comfortable in it, and I’m a smart girl.”

“Whatever I do I do on purpose. A lot of people challenge that but I’m not anti-feminine issues. I am not oblivious to such aspect but I feel that what makes me a strong female is the fact that I do enhance the feminine traits that I have; I’m not a man, I’ll never be one and have no desire to be one. But it doesn’t mean that I can’t be strong.”

The intro to the album welcomes you to the Kelis-world; is it of ‘Being John Malkovich’ kind of more like a ‘Dollywood’?

“Very interesting question,” Kelis exhales a burst of her infectious and sexy laughter, ”but I think it is more like going to a carnival and walking into a Fun House and everything that is reality outside doesn’t apply here anymore. Everything is relative, everything is changing, everyone is changing daily. It is a different world, it is like a vacation: it is you there, it is reality, but not your world. What I offer is an escape from whatever because, as far as I’m aware, no-one has ever been given a map, a guide ‘How To Live Your Life'. This is my walk, my search.”

In (her) secret life

‘Wonderland’ was recorded in the dying months of last year and has been ready since January 2001. Kelis, not the most patient person on the planet, finds it frustrating as many other things that are associated with the whole music business.

“Everything seems to take too long,” she says with a dismissive wave of a hand, “and it is really difficult for me. I’m a 22-year-old, I want to get on and do so many more things. And, when an album is waiting to be released for such a long time you feel like going back and changing things, recording new songs… If I were making this album now, it would be a completely different record.”

One of the songs, ‘Junkie’, is not about narcotics but – love, longing to find a partner, someone to share success with. Still alone in the star-land?

“Very much so and my love-life is in a limbo because I’ve not met that person yet. I don’t date anymore and find it useless because it is a waste of time. You know instantly whether you want to be with someone or not and dating is just avoiding the inevitable. I’ve not time for it but, if I met someone who’d rock my boat, I’d make time for him. So, I concentrate on my career.”

Boogie nights

The daughter of jazz-loving Pentecostal preacher Kenneth and fashion designer mother Iveliss (hence Ke-lis), she grew up in Harlem but attended a private school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side before cutting class and starting modelling. At 16, she rebelled and ran away from home to enrol at the La Guardia stage school. After briefly singing in an all-girl group called Black Ladies United, a friend hooked her up with rappers The Wu-Tang Clan. It was then, says Kelis, that her “whole world turned around.”

What most of us don’t consider when observing someone like Kelis is that Europeans view entertainment more as an artform rather than the showbiz Americans have been brought up on.

“You point is very valid,” she laughs again, “and I feel I have to bring both to the stage, be real artist. Music is what matters but if I can genuinely entertain you as well, then it is more fun. That’s what I’m here for, more fun. And, it is a good opportunity to show that I’m not this crazy, screaming girl but I can talk normally. My image is very strong and people forget that there is a real person behind it. What people don’t realise is that I’m care-free, free-spirited, which is pretty near to the core, but I’m not… Let me tell you, my band, which is almost all-female, we are like a quilting-circle, we never, ever, do anything crazy… We never let men on our tourbus, we don’t want to let any strangers in…”

“It’s so funny because it is so not-Rock’n’Roll… But, once I’m on stage, I’m Kelis, this independent woman, loud and crazy…”

We love the image but the real deal is rather becoming, too.