Kelis Calls Out Pharrell And Chad Hugo Over Allegedly Not Clearing The Beyoncé ‘Renaissance’ Sample With Her

Earlier today, Kelis voiced her frustrations over one of her records being sampled on Beyoncé’s upcoming album Renaissance without it being cleared. She commented on the @kelistrends Instagram page and went back and forth with fans who were excited about the “collaboration.” Evidently, the Harlem artist had much more to get off of her chest in the form of a near three-minute rant that a fan posted to Twitter, where Kelis called out Pharrell and Chad Hugo for purposely participating in the “theft.”

From the very beginning of the video, the 42-year-old clarifies that her beef is not only with Beyoncé, who she says has copied her before much like many other artists. “The issue is not only are we female artists, Black female artists, in an industry that there’s not that many of us,” Kelis says. “We’ve met each other, we know each other, we have mutual friends. It’s not hard, she can contact me.” She then compares the situation to when Ashnikko went through the proper channels to connect with her to clear “Deal With It,” where she sampled Kelis’s “Caught Out There.”

Kelis continued her diatribe by calling the “Bey Hive” sheep for defending her and pointing out how Kelis doesn’t own her music before turning her attention to Pharrell and Chad Hugo.

“Chad really is like an amoeba, he’s spineless. It’s a miracle he can keep his neck up, but Pharrell knows better. This is a direct hit at me, he does this stuff all the time. It’s very petty–very, very, very–and the reality is that it’s frustrating. I have the right to be frustrated. Why? Because no one had the human decency to call and be like ‘Yo, hey, would like to use your record.’ Which, by the way, is the reason I’m annoyed because I know it was on purpose.”

A new Beyoncé release always causes hysteria, so this situation isn’t too surprising, but it will be interesting to see how it unfolds. As of now, there have been no comments from the Lemonade artist, Pharrell, or Hugo.