Kesha

Kesha Rose Sebert (born March 1, 1987), formerly stylized as Ke$ha, is an American singer and songwriter. In 2009 she was featured on rapper Flo Rida's number-one single, "Right Round".

She has earned two number-one albums on the US Billboard 200 with Animal (2010) and Rainbow (2017), and the top-ten records Warrior (2012) and High Road (2020). She attained ten top-ten singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, including "Tik Tok", "Right Round" with Flo Rida, "My First Kiss" with 3OH!3, "Blah Blah Blah", "Your Love Is My Drug", "Take It Off", "We R Who We R", "Blow", "Die Young", and "Timber" with Pitbull. Her 2009 single "Tik Tok" was the best-selling digital single in history, selling over 14 million units internationally, until surpassed in 2011. She fulfilled her five-album contract with Kemosabe Records by releasing the album Gag Order (2023), and released her first independent album, Period (2025), under her own label, Kesha Records.

Kesha's career was halted between Warrior and Rainbow due to a legal dispute with her former producer, Dr. Luke, which began in 2014. A series of lawsuits, known collectively as Kesha v. Dr. Luke, were exchanged between the two parties in which Kesha accused him of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and employment discrimination against her, while Dr. Luke claimed breach of contract and defamation. The case was settled out of court in June 2023.

Kesha is listed as the 26th top artist on Billboard's 2010s decade-end charts. She has received various awards and nominations, including the MTV Europe Music Award for Best New Act in 2010. Kesha has also co-written songs for other artists, including "Till the World Ends" (2011) for Britney Spears and songs for Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, and Miranda Cosgrove.

Early life

Kesha Rose Sebert was born on March 1, 1987, in Los Angeles. Her mother, Rosemary Patricia "Pebe" Sebert, is a singer-songwriter who co-wrote the 1978 single "Old Flames Can't Hold a Candle to You" with Hugh Moffatt for Joe Sun, made popular by country music artist Dolly Parton on her 1980 album Dolly, Dolly, Dolly. Pebe, a single mother, struggled financially while supporting herself, Kesha, and Kesha's older brother Lagan; they relied on welfare payments and food stamps to get by. When Kesha was an infant, Pebe would often have to look after her onstage while performing. Kesha says she has no knowledge of her father's identity. In 2011, a man named Bob Chamberlain who called himself her father approached Star with pictures and letters, claiming they proved that he and Kesha had been in regular contact as father and daughter before she turned 19. Her mother is mostly of Hungarian descent. One of Kesha's great-grandfathers was Polish.

Pebe moved the family to Nashville in 1991 after securing a new publishing deal for her songwriting. She frequently brought Kesha and her brothers along to recording studios and encouraged Kesha to sing after noticing Kesha do so. Kesha attended Franklin High School and Brentwood High School, and said she did not fit in, explaining that her unconventional style (such as homemade purple velvet pants and purple hair) did not endear her to other students. She played the trumpet and later the saxophone in the school marching band, and has said she was a diligent student.

She dropped out of school at 17 after Max Martin convinced her to return to Los Angeles to pursue a music career and earned her General Educational Development (GED) after. In a 2024 interview, Kesha contradicted past statements, saying that she never earned her GED. After attaining a near-perfect score on her SAT, she was offered a scholarship to Barnard College, an affiliate college of Columbia University, but decided to pursue her music career.

In addition to taking songwriting classes, Kesha was taught how to write songs by Pebe, and they often wrote together when she returned home from high school. Kesha began recording demos, which Pebe gave to people she knew in the music business. Kesha was also in a band with Lagan. Kesha and Pebe co-wrote the song "Stephen" when Kesha was 16. Kesha then tracked down David Gamson, a producer she admired from Scritti Politti, who agreed to produce the song. Around this time, Pebe answered an advertisement from the American reality TV series The Simple Life looking for an "eccentric" family to host Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. The episode featuring the Sebert family aired in 2005. Martin had received one of Kesha's demos from Samantha Cox, senior director of writer/publisher relations at Broadcast Music Incorporated, and was impressed. Billboard described two of the demos in a cover story, the first as "a gorgeously sung, self-penned country ballad" and the second as "a gobsmackingly awful trip-hop track" where Kesha raps ad lib for a minute after running out of lyrics. It was the latter track that attracted attention.

Career

2005–2009: Career beginnings

In 2005, at age 18, Kesha was signed to the music publishing company Prescription Songs. Kesha later sang background vocals for Paris Hilton's single, "Nothing in This World". Kesha then signed with David Sonenberg's management company, DAS Communications Inc., in 2006. DAS was tasked with obtaining a major label record deal for Kesha in a year's time in exchange for 20 percent of her music income, with her having the option of ending the relationship if they failed. She worked with several writers and producers while at the company and ended up co-writing Australian pop group the Veronicas' single "This Love" with producer Toby Gad. While furthering her career in the studio, Kesha earned her living as a waitress. While struggling to get by, she began stylizing her name as 'Ke$ha', explaining the dollar sign as an ironic gesture.

In 2008, Kesha appeared in the video for her friend Katy Perry's single "I Kissed a Girl", and sang background vocals for Britney Spears' "Lace and Leather". DAS soon attracted the attention of songwriter and A&R Kara DioGuardi, who wanted to sign Kesha to Warner Bros. Records. The deal fell through due to her existing contract with Kemosabe. Kesha parted ways with DAS and returned to Dr. Luke. Kesha would appear on rapper Flo Rida's number-one single "Right Round" in early 2009, which exposed her to some mainstream attention. According to the parties present, the collaboration happened by accident; she had simply walked into a recording session for the song and Flo Rida happened to have wanted a female voice on it. It was reported that Flo Rida liked the result so much that he recorded one more track with Kesha for his album. However, she is not credited for her feature on the United States release of "Right Round" and did not collect any money for the part. She also refused to appear in the video, explaining to men's magazine Esquire that she wanted to make a name for herself on her own terms.

2009–2011: Breakthrough, Animal, and Cannibal

After failing to negotiate with Lava Records and Atlantic Records in 2009, Kesha signed a multi-album deal with RCA Records. Having spent the previous 6 years working on material for her debut album, she began putting finishing touches to the album. For the album, she wrote approximately 200 songs. It was certified Platinum in the United States and had sold two million albums worldwide by September of that year. The album's lead single, "Tik Tok", broke the record in the United States for the highest sales week for a single, with 610,000 digital downloads sold in a single week, the highest ever by a female artist since digital download tracking began in 2003.

It spent nine weeks at number one in the country and became the longest running number-one by a female artist on her debut single since Debby Boone and "You Light Up My Life" in 1977. As of 2019, "Tik Tok" has sold about 14 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling single in digital history and the best-selling digital single in history by a female solo artist. Subsequent singles from the album ("Blah Blah Blah", "Your Love Is My Drug" and "Take It Off") achieved similar commercial success, each reaching the top ten in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Kesha was also featured on two top ten singles by musician Taio Cruz and electropop duo 3OH!3.

Kesha's deliberately unpolished aesthetic and juvenile stage persona, which she described as her own personality "times ten", quickly made her a deeply polarizing figure. Some of her critics found her output to be unsophisticated, while others felt that she was manufactured and lacked credibility. In May 2010, Kesha's former managers from DAS Communications Inc. filed a lawsuit against her, seeking $14 million from her for commissions on her RCA Records deal, alleging that she had extended the deadline for them to get her a major record label contract and squeezed them out of her career.