When she cares to, Kelis has always been able to – essentially – outplay any given moment in music and make it her own. Just think back to “Milkshake”: on her third album, she set teenagers (and the charts) afire with its winking, playfully sexual nature.
Returning properly for the first time since 2014, she’s back up to her old tricks, yet they’re as fresh as ever. “Midnight Snacks” is – yet again – using food as a stand in for sex, something that amuses and inspires the singer: “It’s funny to me, but I like the fact that you can take sex and food, and you can put these two things together, and they’re totally interchangeable. I love that.“
The production for the track is immediately undeniably current with its trap-like backing, a throwback (the baby coos inevitably call to mind Timbaland’s work on Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody?”), and classically, undeniably Kelis, with its simplicity reaching all the way back to her genre-shaping debut, Kaleidoscope. This is no mistake, as she explains, “I think it’s about when I loved music, you know? I’m looking for the era when I was excited about it, going back to the beginning, and coming full circle.“
Relish the glorious video for “Midnight Snacks” below, and stay tuned for more from Kelis very soon.
