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Beyoncé has quietly removed Kelis‘ “Milkshake” interpolation from her song “Energy” off of her new album on Spotify, after criticism for not clearing the idea with the singer beforehand.
On Wednesday morning, Variety confirmed that the sample can no longer be heard on Spotify, however it does remain in the version on Apple Music.
While representatives for Beyoncé have yet to reveal the reasoning behind its removal, it likely has to do with the fact that Kelis herself vocally disapproved of the use of her song, which credits the Neptunes, aka Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, as “Milkshake’s” principal songwriters.
The R&B singer took to Instagram last week on the album’s release date, claiming she was not informed the song would be interpolated and called her use of the 2003 hit song “theft.”
“It’s not a collab it’s theft. My mind is blown too because the level of disrespect and utter ignorance of all 3 parties involved is astounding… I heard about this the same way everyone else did. Nothing is ever as it seems, some of the people in this business have no soul or integrity and they have everyone fooled.”
Kelis added that is should have been “human decency” for Beyoncé to inform her beforehand that she intended on interpolating parts of the song.
This is not the first time Beyoncé has had issues with song crediting. In June, she removed two credits from the album’s first single “Break My Soul.” The track included parts of the Robin S.’s 1992 dance hit “Show Me Love,” co-authored by Allen George and Fred McFarlane.
Days later, their credits were re-added to the track.
However, in this case Robin S. expressed her gratitude for Beyoncé’s use of the song, saying she was “honored” and “excited” according to Variety.
Her new album “Renaissance,” while already wildly successful with over 100 million streams on Spotify, has been controversial for other reasons beyond the interpolations.
In the song “Heated,” the singer includes the lyric “Sp*zzin’ on that a**, sp*z on that a**,” with the word “sp*z” being viewed by the disabled community as an ableist slur.
She has since faced some backlash for using the word, with disability advocate Hannah Diviney writing “my heart sank” when she heard it in an op-ed for The Guardian.
On Monday, representatives for Beyoncé confirmed that the lyric would be changed as a result in a statement obtained by Insider.
