Kelis Net Worth, Early and Personal Life, Career and Artistry

Kelis Net Worth $4 million

Kelis Rogers-Mora popularly known as Kelis is a 43-year-old  American singer, songwriter, and professionally trained chef born on 21 August 1979 in Harlem, New York, United States.

She was admitted to New York’s Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music, Art, and Performing Arts at the age of 14, where she learned how to play the saxophone and joined the Girls Choir of Harlem.

Kelis worked as a backup vocalist on an album track called “Fairytales,” released by the American hip-hop group Gravediggaz, after graduating from high school in 1997. She then started working with music producers Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, collectively known as The Neptunes, which led to her signing to Virgin Records in 1998.

Virgin Records released Kelis’ debut studio album Kaleidoscope on December 7, 1999. The album, which was inspired by 1970s jazz and disco music, was both critically and commercially successful.

The album topped the charts at 43 in the United Kingdom and then became her first gold-certified album. She left Virgin Records after its follow-up Wanderland (2001) received little sales attention and was not released in the United States until 2019.

The singles from the album include “Milkshake,” “Trick Me,” “Millionaire” (featuring André 3000), and “In Public” (featuring Nas).

Kelis’ fourth studio album, Kelis Was Here (2006), was preceded by the lead single “Bossy” (featuring Too Short) and debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200. Kelis left music after the album’s release to study culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu.

Later, she signed with William and began work on her fifth studio album, Flesh Tone, which was released in 2010. The album birthed four singles, including “Acapella” and “4th of July (Fireworks),” which charted on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart in the United States and the UK Dance Singles Chart in the United Kingdom.

Kelis’ neo-soul-inspired sixth studio album titled Food in 2014 has become her second top-twenty album in the UK and spawned three singles which include; “Jerk Ribs”, “Rumble” and “Friday Fish Fry”.

Kelis has received honors at the Brit Awards, Q Awards, NME Awards, and Grammy Awards. Her musical output as a lead and featured artist spans multiple genres.

She has worked with R&B and hip hop artists such as Busta Rhymes and Clipse, as well as electronic and dance producers such as Calvin Harris, Timo Maas, and Richard X, as well as pop and rock acts such as Enrique Iglesias and No Doubt, and indie and alternative musicians such as Björk and Dave Sitek.

She has sold six million records worldwide, with ten of her singles reaching the top ten of the UK Singles Chart.

To fully satisfy your desire, we will undoubtedly reveal Kelis’s net worth as well as other pertinent details about her early and personal life, career, public image, and other ventures.

Early Life

Kelis Rogers was born and raised in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood, in the Frederick Douglass Houses. Her given name is a mixture of her father’s (1944-2000) and mother’s (1944-2000) names. Kenneth, her father, was an African-American jazz musician and Pentecostal minister who taught at Wesleyan University.

Ivelisse, Kelis’s mother, is a Chinese-Puerto Rican fashion designer who inspired her to pursue a singing career.

Kelis took part in church choirs and played violin, piano, and saxophone as a child while attending Manhattan Country School, a private school. Kelis shaved off all of her hair when she was 13 years old.

Kelis stated in an interview with Charlotte Roche that she was kicked out of her parent’s house at the age of sixteen for bad behavior, stating that she would occasionally clash with her mother, but she continued her education at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, where she formed the R&B trio BLU (Black Ladies United). Before finishing high school, Kelis worked as a bartender and a sales associate at a clothing store.

Career

Kelis sang background vocals on “Fairytales,” a track on Gravediggaz’s 1997 album The Pick, the Sickle, and the Shovel. Following that, a friend introduced Kelis to The Neptunes (Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo); they formed a strong bond, and she landed a record deal with Virgin Records with their help.

According to Kelis, Virgin Records told her that publishing royalties would be split evenly between Williams, Hugo, and herself, but this was not the case; Kelis received no money from the label’s sales of her first two albums. Kelis has also stated that Williams was given credit as a songwriter on songs she wrote that he did not write.

Kelis started working on her debut album, Kaleidoscope, in mid-1998 and finished it within a year. [Citation required] Kaleidoscope, produced by The Neptunes and released by Virgin Records in 1999, peaked at 144 on the Billboard 200 chart and reached the top five on the Top Heatseekers chart.

As according to Nielsen SoundScan, the album sold 249,000 copies as of 2006. “Caught Out There,” the album’s lead and most noticeable single, became a top ten Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs hit and peaked at number 54 on the Billboard Hot 100.   During this time, Kelis appeared on Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s top 40 single “Got Your Money” in the United States.

The album fared better in Europe, where “Caught Out There” was a moderate hit in most European countries except the United Kingdom, where it charted at number four on the UK Singles Chart.

The second single, “Good Stuff” (featuring Terrar of Clipse), peaked at number 19; the third, “Get Along with You,” topped the charts at 51.

Kaleidoscope was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry for sales of 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number 43 on the UK Albums Chart.

Kelis won the Brit Award for International Breakthrough Act and the NME Award for Best R&B/Soul Act in 2001 before joining Moby and U2 on their respective Area: One and Elevation tours.

The output of Kelis and the Neptunes at this time was lauded as foreshadowing an innovation in contemporary R&B, but she later stated, “I was never an R&B performer.

People called me R&B, but that’s because, especially in the United States, if you’re black and sing, you’re R&B “. Her eye-catching clothing and hairstyle drew a lot of attention.

Wanderland, Kelis’ second album, was released in 2001 in Europe, Asia, and Latin America but was not released in North America until 2019.

According to Kelis, her record label in the United States at the time, Virgin, had laid off those who worked on Kaleidoscope; their alternatives did not understand or believe in Wanderland.

Kelis was eventually dropped by Virgin in America around the time the album was released in Europe, though she remained on the label’s roster in Europe.

Wanderland was a commercial failure, reaching its peak at 78 in the UK; its sole single release, “Young, Fresh n’ New,” managed to crack the top forty on the UK Singles Chart.

The album, which was entirely produced by the Neptunes and features collaborations with members of Clipse and No Doubt, received a lukewarm critical reception.

However, further, than the initial shopping and funking glitz, there is far too much filler for a hotly tipped Alterna-soul princess with her sights set on the big prize “. Wanderland was later dubbed “Kelis’ long-lost masterpiece” by The Fader.

Kelis recorded “So Be It” for the Red Hot Organization’s Fela Kuti tribute album, Red Hot and Riot, in 2002, with all proceeds going to AIDS awareness charities.

Personal life

Kelis met rapper Nas in 2002 at an MTV Video Music Awards party; they dated for a year before getting engaged in 2004 and marrying in January 2005. She filed for divorce in April 2009, citing unresolved differences.

At the time, she was seven months pregnant. Kelis gave birth to her first son, Knight, in July 2009. The divorce of the couple was finalized in May 2010. Kelis has defined her marriage to Nas as physically and mentally abusive, citing the impending birth of her child as a factor in her decision to divorce.

Kelis also stated that Rihanna and Chris Brown’s domestic violence incident influenced her decision to leave Nas. She felt so embarrassed after seeing pictures of Rihanna battered because she, too, had scars all over her body, but she was hesitant to speak out.

Nas responded to the allegations on social media, accusing Kelis of attempting to slander him during a custody battle and of abusing his daughter.

In addition to the domestic abuse allegations, she claimed Nas’ drinking habit harmed their relationship and that he had been having adulterous affairs for two years. They are currently fighting for custody of their son.

She elaborated, “He does not take part. He shows up when it’s fun when there’s a good photo opportunity… I don’t believe it should be 50/50 just because you used sperm.”

Kelis was arrested and charged with disorderly behavior in March 2007 in Miami Beach, Florida. Based on the arrest report, Kelis disrupted an operation in which officers posed as prostitutes in the South Beach nightclub district when she began screaming racial slurs at them.

She was arrested and taken to the Miami-Dade County Jail before being released on a $1,500 bond. Kelis was acquitted of the charges in September 2008.

A Kelis spokesman added that the singer would file a lawsuit against the Miami Beach Police Department, claiming unlawful arrest and violation of her civil rights.

Kelis married photographer Mike Mora in 2014, and her second son Shepherd was born in November 2015.

Kelis has been living on a remote farm outside of Los Angeles that she manages since January 2020, when she is not performing around the world. She gave birth to her and Mora’s second child, a daughter named Galilee, in September 2020.

Mora revealed publicly in September 2021 that he was battling stage-4 stomach cancer. He stated on Instagram that he was diagnosed with advanced gastric adenocarcinoma in September 2020 and was given eighteen months to live.

Artistry

Kelis was described as a “punky, rebellious” singer-songwriter by AXS. The New York Times took into account Kelis’s vocals “dynamic” and praised her for being “well schooled in the intricacies of heartache”.

Kelis has been characterized as “strange, weird, and eccentric” by IGN. According to the Chicago Tribune, Kelis used “a voice that lives in the basement” to great effect.

Kelis’ debut album, Kaleidoscope, drew inspiration from a wide range of 1970s genres, including urban, rock, jazz, hip hop, R&B, soul, and disco music.

Kelis cited early Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dinah Washington as having important impacts on the album. Numerous tracks on the album were created for clubs and included electro beats for dancing.

Wanderland, her second studio album, musically resembles its predecessor while exploring more modern funk sounds and dabbling heavily in genres such as soul and rap. It continued the themes developed in Kaleidoscope and was chastised for doing so.

Kelis’ sixth studio album, Food (2014), incorporates soul, funk, gospel, and Afrobeat influences—”You know, those records in your life that your parents played and they resonate with who you are? They evoke nostalgia. I was curious as to how I could achieve that sensation.

Kelis Net Worth

Kelis is a $4 million net worth American singer-songwriter who acquired all this by herself through so much hard work and passion for Hip Hop Genre.

Summary

Kelis is a songwriter and singer. She amassed her enormous net worth as a successful R&B singer, selling over six million records worldwide in which in less than no time, there will be a rise in her Net Worth.