Beyoncé removes Milkshake sample from new song Energy after Kelis accuses her of theft

Beyoncé has removed a sample of Kelis’ hit Milkshake from new album Renaissance after the singer branded it “theft”.

The Break My Soul hitmaker released her latest album on Friday, 29 July, much to music fans delight – but not everyone was as thrilled, notably Kelis.

The Trick Me singer took to Instagram last week to air her grievances about one track of Bey’s in particular, titled Energy.

In the song, Bey could originally be heard singing “la-la, la-la, la” in a variation of the lyrics that the 42-year-old also sang in her 2003 hit.

Last week, we reported how Kelis claimed she was sampled on Beyoncé’s new album Renaissance without permission.

While the 40-year-old Grammy winner hasn’t publicly addressed Kelis’ accusations, it appears the song has been updated on streaming platforms with the removal of Beyoncé’s series of “la-las” from it.

Beyonce: Renaissance (2022)

After the song’s launch Kelis said “It’s not a collab it’s theft”, also singling out hitmaker Pharrell Williams and his Neptunes co-producer Chad Hugo for criticism.

The credits states the track contains an interpolation of Milkshake, which is where portions of a song’s melody are re-recorded instead of directly sampled.

Williams and Hugo are both credited on the album for the interpolation, whereas singer Kelis is not.

Kelis had previously accused Williams and Hugo of tricking her into a bad deal which left them with the rights to Milkshake.

Commenting on an Instagram post on fan account @kelistrends, which stated there would be a Kelis sample on Renaissance, the singer said: “It’s not a collab it’s theft.”

The musician said: “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.”

The singer later added to her comments in follow-up videos, denying she was “jealous” of Beyoncé.

“The reality is that my real beef is not ONLY with Beyoncé because, at the end of the day, she sampled a record, she’s copied me before,” she said.

“She’s done this before, so have many other artists. It’s fine, I don’t care about that.

“The issue is that not only are we female artists, okay, Black female artists in an industry, there’s not that many of us.

“We’ve met each other, we know each other, we have mutual friends. It’s not hard. She can [make] contact, right?”

A representative for Beyoncé has been contacted for comment.

Kelis’ isn’t the only one upset with Beyoncé following her latest album release as the star agreed to remove an offensive ableist slur after receiving backlash from listeners.

Beyoncé is now to replace the term in the song Heated, with her publicist telling Sky News the phrase was not “used intentionally in a harmful way”.