Sublime genre-hopper is more party than comeback

Kelis still has one of the best voices in music and does not disappoint at her first headline show, writes Kate Hutchinson

- Kate Hutchinson

Her “Milkshake” brings all the Glasto-goers to West Holts! OK, so that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as the lyrics of her 2003 chef-d’oeuvre but, hopefully, you get the gist: this is Kelis’s moment as the musician headlines a Glasto stage for the first time, poised to take her place as a pioneer, provocateur and polymathic high priestess of Y2K R&B-pop.

Kelis’s career has had more twists and turns than Glasto’s naughty corner. The last time she played the festival was 2014, in support of her most recent album Food, on which her bigband soul and afrobeat sound marked a left-turn from the electro-dance she had toyed with on 2010’s Flesh Tone. It was a far cry from the mercuried funk of her early albums with hip hop and rock band N.E.R.D. More recently, Kelis has leaned into the food theme instead, by training as a Cordon Bleu saucier and launching a wellness line. But her music, in tandem with Noughties nostalgia, has been having another moment.