Kelis accuses Beyoncé’s Renaissance album of ‘theft’ for sampling her without permission

Kelis has accused Beyoncé’s forthcoming album Renaissance of “theft”, claiming that she was sampled on it without permission.

The “Break My Soul” singer’s newest record – scheduled to release on Friday (29 July) – includes a song titled “Energy,” which samples Kelis’s 2000 track “Get Along With You”.

A recent Instagram post by an account named kelistrends recently shared an old photo of Kelis and Beyoncé, alongside the caption, “@Beyonce’s Renaissance album will include a @kelis sample on the song ‘Energy’”, followed by the mindblown emoji.

Under her verified account, bountyandfull, the 42-year-old singer and chef commented on the post alleging “it’s not a collab it’s theft”.

“My mind is blown too because the level of disrespect and utter ignorance of all 3 parties involved is astounding,” Kelis wrote in a separate comment.

“I heard about this the same way everyone else did. Nothing is ever as it seems, some of the people in this business have no soul or integrity and they have everyone fooled.”

The Independent has reached out to Beyoncé’s rep for comment.

Shortly after Kelis’ comment gained traction, the singer took to Instagram to post two follow-up video statements in response to accusations she was “jealous” of Beyoncé.

“The reality is that my real beef is not ONLY with Beyoncé because, at the end of the day, she sampled a record, she’s copied me before. she’s done this before, so have many other artists. It’s fine, I don’t care about that.

“The issue is that not only are we female artists, okay, Black female artists in an industry [where] 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?

“It’s not about me being mad at Beyoncé,” she addressed “ignorant” social media users, calling them “sheep”.

Placing some blame on Pharrell and his Neptunes partner Chad Nico, she continued: “Pharrell knows better. This is a direct hit at me. He does this all the time, it’s very petty.”

Kelis added: “It’s not about me being jealous. Jealous of someone using my song? That’s the dumbest, most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard. Like grow up.”

In her next video post, “just to add to my thought”, Kelis called out the “hypocrisy and nonsense” within the music industry.

She called Pharrell out for talking about artist rights in a past inteview, “where in reality, when I was signed to him, I had the same manager he had, and he has writing credits on my records”, Kelis continued.

“All my singles coincidentally, and he ain’t never written a song, a lyric a day in his life.”

“The reality is, all of this female empowerment, it only counts if you really do it,” she continued. “If you’re really living it and walking the walk. Don’t just talk the talk.”songs about female empowerment, adding that “I don’t talk about it, I am about it”.

The Independent has contacted representatives for Pharrell for comment.

A week prior to its scheduled release, Beyoncé shared the tracklist for Renaissance, her first solo album since 2016’s Lemonade.

Meanwhile, fans recently urged others not to leak the album after it was spotted in stores two days ahead of its official release.

Renaissance will be released on Friday 29 July.