It’s been a long four years for Kesha, the pop singer of “TiK ToK” and “We R Who We R” fame. Embroiled in an ongoing legal battle with her former producer Dr. Luke, the previously prolific singer-songwriter had refrained from releasing any new music.
Until today. On Thursday, Kesha sent her new single “Praying” into the world, accompanied with a music video. Produced with Ryan Lewis (best known for Macklemore), Ben Abraham, and Andrew Joslyn, with a video directed by Swedish mastermind Jonas Åkerlund, Kesha does not hide her recent battle, instead choosing to preface the powerful piano ballad with a spoken-word preface discussing her struggles with depression and hopelessness, and how they’ve driven her musical comeback.
“What is the lesson? What is the point? God, give me a sign, or I have to give up. I can’t do this anymore. Please just let me die,” she intones, stranded and seeming lifeless in black-and-white on a raft in the middle of the ocean. (She also published an extended prelude on Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter.)
That dark intro, however, soon morphs into a powerful, colorful, and, yes, glitter-filled celebration of overcoming. “I’m proud of who I am,” she sings in the uplifting piano ballad. “No more monsters; I can breathe again.”
Fans are overjoyed. There’s more to come to feed her fandom, too, which call themselves “Animals”: Kesha also announced the imminent release of an album, Rainbow, on August 11.
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