The change comes just days after Queen B’s team announced she’d be altering a lyric in another song after it was called “ableist
Beyoncé has made another change to her latest album.
Following theft allegations from Kelis about an interpolation of her hit “Milkshake” on Queen B’s new song “Energy,” the sample has been removed from the track on Apple Music, Tidal, Spotify and YouTube.
Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo of The Neptunes are the sole credited writers and producers on the 2003 track from Kelis.
While Williams, 49, and Hugo, 48, are credited as co-writers on “Energy,” per Genius, Kelis, whose vocals do not appear on the Renaissance track, is not.
Reps for Williams and Beyoncé have not responded to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.
Ahead of the Friday release of Renaissance, Kelis, 42, took to Instagram and expressed anger toward not being contacted about the song’s use beforehand.
After a fan account named @kelistrends shared a throwback photo of Kelis and Beyoncé, 40, alongside a caption mentioning that Renaissance “will include a @kelis sample on the song ‘Energy,’ ” the Grammy nominee left a comment from her verified @bountyandfull account, writing, “It’s not a collab it’s theft.”
In follow-up comments, Kelis revealed that she heard about the sample “the same way everyone else did” and said, “The level of disrespect and utter ignorance of all three parties is astounding.”
The musician and chef said that her issue was not about the sample itself, but rather that she was not contacted about it.
“The issue is that not only are we female artists, okay? Black female artists in an industry [where] there’s not that many of us,” she continued. “We’ve met each other, we know each other, we have mutual friends. It’s not hard. She can contact, right?”
She went on to seemingly reference fans pointing out that Kelis doesn’t have writing or production credits on the song, and added, “I know what I own and what I don’t own. I also know the lies that were told. I also know the things that were stolen. Publishing was stolen, people were swindled out of rights. It happens all the time, especially back then. So, it’s not about me being mad about Beyoncé.”
Kelis specifically mentioned Williams, claiming the “Happy” musician “knows better.”
“This is a direct hit at me,” she added of her former collaborator, whom she alleged holds writing credits on many of their collaborative works despite not contributing lyrics. “He does this stuff all the time. It’s very petty.”
The news of the change comes just days after it was confirmed to PEOPLE that Beyoncé would be altering a lyric from another song on her new album Renaissance after it was called “ableist.”
In a statement, a representative for Beyoncé confirmed the lyric in her song “Heated,” where she uses the derogatory word “sp-z,” would be changed.
“The word, not used intentionally in a harmful way, will be replaced,” the statement says.
Beyoncé’s use of the word was criticized by disability activists online, including advocate Hannah Diveney, who said the use of the word is “ableist” in an opinion piece in The Guardian, as well as disability charity Sense, which noted on social media that it was “disappointing” to see the star use the word in the first place.
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