You've Never Heard Kesha Like This

Her new album is full of unfiltered anger, grief, and insecurity: I really dug into my uglier emotions'

- BRENNA EHRLICH

Kesha was on the verge of a panic attack in the spring of 2020, when her aging cat Mr. Peeps brought over her headphones. She'd been spiraling a lot back then, her anxiety mounting as the pandemic shut down the music industry, but she took her cat's gesture as a sign that it was time to meditate. And in the midst of a guided meditation she'd done many times before, something shook loose.

"I had this really beautiful, scary, and intense spiritual awakening where it felt like I was talking to my highest self, or God, whatever word you want to say," she recalls. Three years later, she's reclining on pristine white sheets with Mr. Peeps beside her at her L.A. home, dressed in simple white leisurewear with her hair in a messy topknot. "I fully thought I was having a mental breakdown. I called my therapist and my doctor. They all were like, 'Oh, you had a spiritual awakening. Yay! Good job."

The next day, she wrote a song titled "Eat the Acid," in which she recounted that night, plus some clutch advice from her mother: "Do whatever you want in your life, but don't eat acid, because when you eat acid, you see things that you'll never be able to unsee."

At the time, she didn't think the song would ever see the light of day, but in the end, that track became the genesis of her fifth studio album, Gag Order, out now. The album was produced by Rick Rubin, a fellow Pisces who bonded with Kesha over the spirituality that she'd tapped into while not dropping acid.