As Kesha continues to enjoy the benefits of making it through the wilderness (as Madonna would put it) of the 2010s, that doesn’t mean she can’t find joy in revisiting that recent decade from a sonic perspective (though certainly not a legal/emotional trauma one). Which is exactly what she does on what marks the third single from her forthcoming sixth album, Period (which will, like “Joyride” last year, be released on July 4th for highly specific metaphorical purposes). Titled “Yippee-Ki-Yay” (a term that, ever since Die Hard, infers an automatic nod to Bruce Willis), the song features none other than fellow 2010s staple, T-Pain (long overdue, especially since she already collaborated with T-Pain’s overt counterpart, Lil Wayne, on 2010’s “Sleazy Remix 2.0 – Get Sleazier”).
And, in keeping with the 2010s motif, the song refuses to be under two minutes, instead clocking in at a respectable three minutes and thirty-one seconds, almost as if Kesha optimistically believes that any generation beyond millennials still has the attention span for that kind of “girth.” Like the previous two songs she’s released from Period (even “Delusional”), “Yippee-Ki-Yay” is jubilant and unapologetic. For those who insist whatever she went through couldn’t have been “that bad” because of how happy she seems, look only to the aphorism she gave to Elle in late 2024: “I really think that my joy is such a feminist act of defiance.” Unlike the other previous two singles, however, “Yippee-Ki-Yay” is also unapologetic…ally country. Which makes sense considering that, even if born in Los Angeles, Kesha’s “down-home” roots are in Tennessee (hence, shouting out the Volunteer State with the lyrics, “Look around, the only ten I see/Is this barefoot baddie from Tennessee”).
Granted, it’s more like “pop-country,” but the fact that Kesha would veer in this direction (taking a rapper like T-Pain along with her for the cowgirl ride) after years of being primarily associated with dance-pop bangers continues to prove Lana Del Rey’s prophetic statement from early last year at the NMPA + Billboard Songwriter Awards: “The music business is going country.” Not only did Kesha get that message of late (thanks also, in part, to the years of tutelage from her country songwriting mother, Pebe Sebert), but so did one of her unwitting protégées, Chappell Roan, who released her own pop-country bop, “The Giver,” earlier this month.
While Roan (who has praised Kesha on a few occasions, including when she told Elle post-Lollapalooza encounter, “Kesha has always stood up for women and what she believes in, and that’s very inspiring”) might have a slightly more “salacious” lyrical subject matter to offer, Kesha still keeps it sexy and kinky (she does, after all, even have a song called “Kinky”) with such verses as, “Ooh, that’s what I like/I’m feeling loose, I’m feeling light/I’m hella smooth like Miller Lite/I got the moves [a little too close to reminding one of the Maroon 5 and Xtina song], I’m everybody’s type.”
Despite this unabashed brand of confidence having always been part and parcel of the Kesha canon, this new era embodies a more authentic kind of buoyancy and self-assurance (as also evidenced by “Joyride”). One that isn’t mired down by the behind-the-scenes horrors of Kesha being told she looks like “a fucking refrigerator” (and, accordingly, needing to go to rehab for the eating disorder she developed while under the negative influence of a certain “doctor’s” long-standing verbal abuse [among other kinds of abuses]).
And, naturally, the addition of T-Pain on the track only makes it all the more associated with having a good time/taking Kesha seriously in her unseriousness (except when she’s talking about retooling the entire music industry a.k.a. “The music industry should be fucking terrified of me. Because I’m about to make some major moves and shift this shit. I really want to dismantle it piece by piece and shine light into every corner. I hope my legacy is making sure it never happens to anybody ever again.”).
Plus, not only are both 2010s staples the respective Queen and King of having a messy good time throughout the alcohol-drenched night, but they’re both also the respective Queen and King of using Auto-Tune (sorry, Charli…XCX). It’s a match made in “we-came-up-in-the-2010s’” heaven.
As for T-Pain’s verse, he’s sure to lavish some laudatory praise on Kesha, rapping, “Kesha (Kesha), you’re dollar-sign fine [a callout to her brief stint as Ke$ha], I want more of it/Regular girls can’t handle my world, I get bored of it/Don’t order it if you don’t wanna get into all sorts of shit/Park that booty next to this/It’s evident you don’t know that I’m heaven-sent/Edison couldn’t get this lit, I’m flexing in this.” So, too, is Kesha. Whether that means flexing literally in the sheer white panties she sports in the accompanying lyric video or flexing about the “brand-new car” she keeps mentioning in the chorus, Kesha has plenty to be proud of. Including her indelible association with this particular point in time. And, unlike certain pop stars who insist they aren’t inextricably linked to a certain decade (like Mariah Carey with the 90s), Kesha has no issue paying tribute to her musical origins by playing up the signature sounds of the 10s—with T-Pain as the ultimate finishing touch on that tribute.
And while there is a solo version of the track, it’s T-Pain’s presence that makes all the difference to how the message of “Yippee-Ki-Yay” is received. That message being, “To waste tonight would be criminal.” For it has always been Kesha’s mantra to “make the most of the night like we’re gonna die young.” Or even like we’re gonna die “old.” As people Kesha and T-Pain’s age are now considered by those who were born in the 2010s instead of actually living through the heyday of vocal manipulation and EDM-as-mainstream-pop. But for those who didn’t experience it, Kesha and T-Pain are here to make you feel as though you are.
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