Kelis — “Milkshake”

60 Songs That Explain the '90s

The Ringer

Music

4.7 • 849 Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, Rob talks about the song that left him speechless upon his first listen—“Milkshake”. He retraces his steps back to the beginning of Kelis’s career when she was screaming at a Glastonbury crowd. He analyzes the trend of not being able to place Black women into neat and separate genres, as rock, rap, punk, pop, and R&B start to blur lines. He is blissfully confused, and that is okay. Later, he is joined by music critic Leslie Gray Streeter to discuss the art of balancing humor and anger in a song and the empowerment of “Milkshake” as Kelis makes fun of the men who lust after her. Host: Rob Harvilla Producers: Justin Sayles and Olivia Crerie Additional Video Editing: Kevin Pooler and Chris Sutton Guest: Leslie Gray Streeter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Now, are all the traitors present?
0:02.5	Let's get started, shall we?
0:04.5	From rags to riches.
0:05.8	I'm so sick of this.
0:07.0	Working like a dog and being treated worse.
0:09.1	Yorkshire to New York.
0:10.7	Poor climbers, you and me.
0:12.4	A life dedicated to revenge.
0:14.4	Let's make this an occasion to remember.
0:16.9	A Woman of Substance on Channel 4.
0:19.1	Stream now.
0:28.6	It is imperative.
0:42.6	It is extremely important to me personally that you personally enjoy this clip of Kalees covering Nirvana's smells like teen spirit at the Glastonbury Festival in the year 2000. Everything about this is perfect, including any inadvertent
0:49.8	musical imperfections.
1:13.2	Yeah, that biffed guitar chord right at the beginning there, perfect.
1:15.7	That's a little something called punk rock.
1:17.4	It is June 2000.
1:24.6	And your Glastonbury Festival headliners are, let's see here, Travis, David Bowie, Moby,
1:29.3	the Chemical Brothers, the Pet Shop Boys, Nine Inch Nails, fat boy Slim, and Willie Nelson, etc. A lot of dance music is the new rock and roll energy here, other than
1:37.0	Willie Nelson. Forget all those guys, though. Here we have Calais, the Harlem native and wily,
1:43.5	unclassifiable, mononymous, ostensibly R&B-oriented, young pop star.
1:50.1	Kalease is dressed all in white and a blondy crop top, and she is pumping her fist maniacly
	...

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