Kesha has had a music career that has spanned a decade. The singer-songwriter, whose full name is Kesha Rose Sebert, was signed when she was just 18 years old. Her first major success in mainstream music came in 2009 after she was featured on rapper Flo Rida’s number-one single “Right Round.” With her party-girl persona and her name stylized as Ke$ha at the time, the artist then found success with her 2010 album, Animal. This featured hits, including “Tik Tok,” “Blah Blah Blah,” “Your Love Is My Drug,” and the collaboration with 3Oh!3, “We R Who We R.”
As we previously reported, Kesha opened up about feeling pressured to play up her “wild-child” persona at the beginning of her music career. In an interview with Self, the musician said her “fans came to me for joy, and I didn’t want to disappoint them.” At the time, she encouraged her fans to be free to get “hot and dangerous.” She wanted to create a safe space at her shows for people to be “exactly who they want to be” which is something she stands by as an artist.
On her recently released fifth studio album, Gag Order, Kesha is excited for people to see her art and the different phases of her life. She used this new album as an outlet to get rid of the anxiety she felt about being put under a microscope for so long. On top of that, to create a new image of herself that she wants people to acknowledge. “It was the first time I shed real light on subjects that, previously, I was too nervous to,” she said of Gag Order. “I had to shed light on the darker sides of what happens in my mind.”
See below our five picks of Kesha’s best songs:
