Kesha talks newfound freedom, new label, and new album ‘Period’

On Dec. 6, 2023, Kesha got a call that changed everything.

After spending years beholden to a contract she signed at 18, and enduring a traumatic, decade-long legal battle in the public eye to escape it, the singer was granted permission to part from the Kemosabe label at RCA Records. Now, armed with the newly christened Kesha Records, she feels fully in control of her music career — and says she has the album to prove it.

“To finally be in a position where I’m on my own label, I’m a free woman,” the singer tells Entertainment Weekly. “I have autonomy over my voice, my likeness, my mind, my body, my spirit. It has really been a game changer energetically, spiritually. From the moment I got my freedom, it literally was the most psychotic joyride.”

An unapologetic hedonist from the jump, Kesha broke out in 2010 with brazen rap-pop songs about brushing her teeth “with a bottle of Jack” and going feral on dance floors ’til dawn. In her world, clumpy mascara was couture and body glitter was worth its weight in gold. That carefree, messy persona was dampened, however, by years of litigation with label owner and record producer Lukasz Gottwald, a.k.a. Dr. Luke, whom she sued in 2014, alleging sexual, physical, verbal, and emotional abuse. He denied the allegations and countersued, alleging defamation and repudiation of their recording agreement. They settled in 2023.

Writing and recording her upcoming sixth album, Period, have been acts of liberation for the singer, a way of repossessing her identity, her sexuality, and her power. That the project arrives on Independence Day is no coincidence. It’s also a return to form for an artist famous for putting out catchy, bratty music for hard partiers.

“I’m just healing in real time in front of the whole world… my purpose is finally in my own hands, and I can do what I want with it,” she says. “I feel like Period is reclaiming my throne as the most f—ing fun human being in pop music. I will take that title, and I will wear that crown.”

Accompanying Period is her upcoming Tits Out Tour with Slayyyter, Scissor Sisters, and Rose Gray. Her goal is for it to be “the biggest f—ing party,” especially when she headlines New York’s Madison Square Garden for the first time. “I want to try to break records for how many tits out we can get in Madison Square Garden in one night. That’s my challenge,” she says. “Everybody should be comfortable to do whatever you feel, but if the spirit moves you, I want everybody to just be having the best, most liberated night of their entire life.”

Period‘s first lyrics after the beat drops — “I only drink when I’m happy, and I’m drunk right now” — are an apt introduction to an album about surviving a s— storm and getting s—faced to celebrate it. Kesha describes the album’s lead single, “Joyride,” a disorienting dance track anchored by an accordion, as her “favorite little psychotic ho anthem,” while hyperpop earworm “Boy Crazy” is her “maniacal best friend egging her on.” Then there’s the LP’s final song, “Cathedral,” a serene ballad she likens to morning meditation after a wild night out.

It’s club music for the crunchy crowd and festival-goers with their third eyes open, balancing Gregorian monk–like chants about deliverance with pounding bass to shock the chakras. It’s not surprising, then, to learn that Kesha found inspiration while residing in a “hippie commune” — Esalen in Big Sur, Calif. — and teaching others about the power of songwriting. In May, she announced the launch of Smash, a community platform she co-founded “where creators connect, collaborate, and hire each other on their own terms — and retain rights to whatever they create,” per a press release.

“I’ve realized how songwriting has helped me alchemize all of my pain into something that can potentially help other people,” she says. “So now I go [to the commune] and just for fun we’ll teach other people how to take what they’ve gone through and turn it into song. I found it to be a really healing place for me, and it’s a place where I can also give back.”

While at that commune, a friend offered to take “tasteful” nudes of the singer with an accordion draped across her body; she calls the shots “some of my favorite pictures of myself.” The idea to build a dance track around an accordion was born, and the gamble paid off — “Joyride” is one of her most layered, chaotic releases to date. Like much of Period, it’s an ode to self-love.

“It’s a love letter to myself,” Kesha says of her first album made entirely on her own terms. “But I also hope it can be a beacon of joy and hope for anybody who’s going through something painful.”

And who isn’t going through it these days, in this political and economic climate? A new Kesha album seems fitting for a period when many millennials are sensing some déjà vu. They see the resurgence of cultural cornerstones from around the time of the 2008 housing crisis — think American Idol‘s recent ratings boost or “mall brands” coming back in vogue — as signs that we’re bracing ourselves for another financial crash. These trends’ renewed popularity could be, at least partly, rooted in nostalgia for what made us happy in past eras of uncertainty. Some might conclude, then, that the return of a proudly low-rent, late-aughts scuzz-pop princess is just another recession indicator, and a welcome one for her adoring Animals.

“I mean, they’re not wrong,” Kesha says. For her, and plenty of us, pop music exists to uplift and enliven, serving as a gateway to a better outlook. Couldn’t we all use a pick-me-up right now?

“Honestly, my main intention for making music is to bring people into the vibration of love and joy,” the singer says. “So if they can find a little bit of that in a three-and-a-half-minute song coming from me, then I’m honored, because the world is tough right now, and we need to find joy where we can.”

We can party like it’s 2010, but things have changed (and not just the inflation rate). Kesha achieved stardom that year with her first single, “TiK ToK,” which opened with the line, “Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy.” Ahead of the music mogul going to trial for a plethora of alleged sex crimes, she officially changed the lyric last year to “Wake up in the morning feeling like, ‘F— P. Diddy!'” It’s a satisfying enough amendment, but considering the seismic personal and professional shifts in her life in the past decade-plus, who would she wake up feeling like if she wrote “TiK ToK” today?

“Me,” she replies firmly. “I’m the baddest bitch I know.”

Period is out July 4. The Tits Out Tour kicks off July 1.