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Kesha calls in fresh off a reinvigorating retreat to Big Sur, California, where she spent a weekend off-the-grid, “dancing and trying to move trauma through my body” — at last in a place of self-actualized autonomy and healing. This spiritual release reflects a physical one that has been publicly fought in court, but, perhaps most intensely of all, within the pop artist’s soul. “It rained all year, but it’s clearing up,” she sings on the new celebratory single “YIPPEE-KI-YAY.” with T-Pain. “I’m flying high, it’s a miracle/ I’m drinking spirits, I’m spiritual.”

Now, Kesha is making art on her own terms under the independent label, Kesha Records. With the July 4 release of her sixth studio album, PERIOD (stylized as the punctuation mark), Kesha will be putting out “the first record I’ve ever made where I have legal rights to my own voice,” as she explains. The freedom to speak for herself is entrenched throughout PERIOD, with a mix of genres authentic to the singer’s power-pop, propulsive sound that recalls the mid-aughts party anthems that defined her early career.

A sense of liberation is emboldened in full force on PERIOD’s aptly titled track “FREEDOM.,” a wistful meditation that morphs into house-y dance music over its expansive six-minute run. This theme is also explored in Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert, the new novel from certified Animal (and The Traitors Season 3 contestant) Bob The Drag Queen, who expresses the collective hurt Kesha’s fandom felt watching her be silenced: “We’ve had the misfortune of watching people like you see what the entertainment industry does to women and how it tries — once you start to go toward your own freedom — to have it stripped away.”

Both cultural icons have found strength in allowing themselves to experience the exhilaration of the dance floor. Bob recalls crying while watching Kesha perform “Blow” live. “So much of your early work was about being free and having fun,” Bob notes. “Something about seeing you on stage performing ‘Blow,’ and I just heard you do your little laugh and go, ‘Dance.’ And as soon as you said ‘dance,’ I just started crying.”

Kesha announces today her summer Tits Out North American Tour, with special guests Scissor Sisters, Slayyyter and Rose Gray. The tour will see Kesha performing live at venues like Madison Square Garden and The Forum to promote PERIOD, which has already seen the buzz of singles “JOYRIDE.,” “DELUSIONAL.,” and now, “YIPPEE-KI-YAY.”

Ahead of PERIOD, exploring her hard-won agency and bliss (“FREEDOM.” proclaims loudly out the gate, “I only drink when I’m happy and I’m drunk right now”), and in anticipation of the honor she’s set to receive next week from The NYC LGBT Community Center, Kesha and Bob The Drag Queen connected for a conversation about freedom, songwriting and Snatch Game.

Kesha: Hey y’all.

Bob the Drag Queen: Hey, Kesha. How are you?

Kesha: Howdy, I’m so good. Yippee-Ki-Yay, mothafuckers.

How did each of you come onto each other’s radar?

Bob: Obviously I’m a millennial [Laughs]. And I was in college partying and doing the stuff Kesha was singing about in her songs. “Me and all my friends, we don’t buy bottles, we bring ’em/ We take the drinks from the tables when you get up and leave ’em.” I’ve identified as an Animal for a long time. I once tweeted out that I was in the audience at Kesha’s show at the Manhattan Ballroom being like, “Hey, at a Kesha show.” Then Kesha reached out and was like, “Oh my god, you’re at my show.” The team was like, “This is crazy, you should have told us.” And then they gave us some tickets to go see you in Oklahoma City. I was up there in this little VIP section hanging out with a bunch of other Kesha fans and kicking it. Then we ran into each other at a couple of events, too — at the Whitney Cummings roast, and I did the Kesha Cruise.

Kesha: It started as a mutual respect for each other’s art, because I’ve always respected the art of drag and also the political significance of drag. I really identify with people that alchemize the fight for human rights. You make it into a beautiful spectacle of fun and you’re one of the best in the world at that art. There is an art to bringing a levity and a joy and a feast for the eyes. But underneath all of it is a very serious political commentary.

Bob: You do the same thing, as well. You’re really good at making sure that people who are marginalized feel seen. I remember when [your song] “Pretty Lady” [leaked], it was huge in the drag scene. We were obsessed. And you directly shouted out queens in the song, which was really massive for us in drag at the time.

Kesha: I love hearing that. I’ve always felt this calling to create a safe space for people to celebrate themselves. And since high school, I’ve been very drawn to really trying to do so, with any little tiny insignificant amount of power that a pop star yields in this world, which is very relative. But if I ever have agency over a space, my number one priority is to make it safe for all people.

Bob: I really felt that at your concerts that I’ve been to and on the cruise ship. I’ve only seen that with a few other artists whose shows I’ve been to where people really feel safe. I felt that with Madonna’s tour. I felt that with Lizzo’s tour, as well. It’s just that if you have been deemed a freak or “the crazy kids,” as your song says, then you feel like you can really vibe with this artist and feel safe in this space.

Kesha: I love hearing that that came through on the cruise. It was just beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. It felt like a spaceship to queer liberation. It was such a magical experience, and I’d never been on a cruise. I’d heard all sorts of crazy stories from my friend who used to work on a cruise ship. She told me about one time a lady died and they put her in the freezer next to the meat and I was like, Oh no, am I really about to get on a cruise ship? And then we got on that cruise ship and it was the most beautiful, sacred, safe space for everyone to just be themselves and still is one of my favorite memories of my entire career.

Bob: Yeah, it was really fun.

Kesha: So, we got to share that experience and I just love you, Bob. I’m so happy I’m doing this interview with you.

Bob: I love it, me too.

I’ve always felt this calling to create a safe space for people to celebrate themselves.

Both of your latest projects speak to the idea of freedom — Bob, your book Harriet Tubman: Live In Concert and Kesha, your new album.

Kesha: Bob, I’m dying to hear more about the origin story of this project.

Bob: Thank you. So, maybe eight years ago I was in Angels in America at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, and I had this idea that came to me. I said, ” Oh my god, I would love to hear Harriet Tubman’s album.” Obviously, this is my take on it, I don’t know what Harriet Tubman would be saying today. And there are some freedom quotes that I really love. One of them is Nina Simone: she goes, “No fear, freedom is really no fear.” Will I ever achieve no fear? I don’t know. But it’s still like, freedom is not an end goal. It is an ongoing journey. It is a never-ending goalpost. It’s always moving, but you just keep striving toward it. Harriet Tubman did in her life. She lived to be in her nineties and even then to her very last day, she was still fighting for abolition and for freedom for women and for Black people.

Kesha: That’s beautiful. And what a brilliant, creative thing to put together. I just got back from my hippie commune in the woods so I’ve been off the map for the past week, so I’m excited to join the land of the living again and would love to hear it.

Bob: And then what about your album?

Kesha: So, my album, PERIOD, just got announced. The muse for my other albums has been a lot of external factors or things I’ve been going through, things that were unavoidable to create art about. And to be honest with you, this is my first album where I’m truly free in every way. And not only in all the legal ways, but also I’m really working on healing and feeling free from any residual emotional turmoil that’s left in my body. I spent the weekend dancing and trying to move trauma through my body. I’m really trying to embody freedom in every way possible. I’m trying to allow myself to feel what freedom feels like, because it’s been almost 20 years for me. And that doesn’t just happen in a day. That programming lives inside your mind and your spirit and your body. And we all have ways in which we are or are not free. My perspective and vantage point is obviously my own lived experience.

But freedom, by definition, is the power and the right to act and speak and think as you want to without any restraint. And it’s terrifying for me to really embody full freedom, because it’s the act of really embodying who you are to the fullest. And to really feel that, it starts with safety. So, that’s why creating safe spaces has been my number-one objective, because how can anyone truly feel free if they don’t feel safe?

Bob: We’ve had the misfortune of watching people like you and Britney Spears and Wendy Williams see what the entertainment industry does to women and how it tries — once you start to go toward your own freedom — to have it stripped away. It brought a lot of us together to rally around you and to support you. I told a story on a podcast recently, you’ve written so many beautiful songs. When people go to your concert they usually cry during “Praying.” But for me it was “Blow.” I don’t know what it was. It was the encore performance. So much of your early work was about being free and having fun. Something about seeing you on stage performing “Blow,” and I just heard you do your little laugh and go, “Dance.” And as soon as you said “dance,” I just started crying, which is great. I made it through the whole concert without a single tear until then.

Kesha: That’s honestly making me really emotional. The most political act right now is to be happy and to be free and to spread love. And even when all the forces feel like they’re against you — to put on that makeup and to put on your glitter and to dance — just demanding to feel your joy. At that point I was years into litigation and had nothing to give. I was so depleted emotionally from my joy and so disconnected from being treated like a human. And I still, in the face of all of that, I was goddamn determined to spread joy even when I had no joy to give. I appreciate you seeing that.

Bob: We all saw it, and it really meant a lot to rally around you and see you up there telling us to have fun, telling us to dance, telling us to cover ourselves in glitter. To put some glitter in your hair, throw on a sequin and a leather jacket and a combat boot, and still hit the club and enjoy yourselves regardless. Because that’s truly what the powers that be don’t want us to see. They want to believe that they’ve stripped all your joy away from you.

Kesha: It’s like laughing in the face of chaos and turmoil, and finding each other and finding community and finding love and finding a safe place to move your bodies. I really think joy and love is the most political act that we could all embody right now. Because we are in the middle of a chaotic shit storm, it’s like spiritual warfare. And I just think that what you do and what I do, we really are warriors for joy and freedom. It’s much more than just putting on a wig or me dancing around. It’s not that. It’s a very defiant political act to be in your joy and to spread that.

This is my first album where I’m truly free in every way… I’m really trying to embody freedom in every way possible.

What informs and inspires your art today? What are you tapping into?

Bob: I always find joy. Something about humor is so remarkable to me, because people really can laugh despite it all. My mom passed away last year on Mother’s Day. It was really, really, really hard. I buried her the next Sunday. And then the Sunday after that, I went to go film The Traitors, this incredibly stressful TV show about deceit and lying and death and murder. But in the midst of all that, somehow I was still able to find joy and laughter because that’s what my mom would have wanted.

Kesha: My god, I’m really sorry to hear about your mother. Even the ability for you to go and give that is a gift, and to be able to go and give that gift to others, what a selfless act. I’m just sending you so much love.

Bob: It was crazy, I’m not going to lie, but it actually helped me out a lot. I think it was better for me than sitting at home by myself.

Kesha: That’s the beauty of art. I celebrated the release of “YIPPEE-KI-YAY.” and the announcement of PERIOD by teaching others how to write songs, which is the most beautiful part about art. I think escapism is an incredibly important and valuable thing for humans, especially when hard things are happening. To have an outlet to put your grief into, to put your emotions into something that then can help connect you to others.

When I create a song, it makes a moment of my life immortal. At the end of my life, I can go back and listen to my life through all of my songs that I’ve put out and all the ones that I haven’t been able to put out. It’s like the book of my life. I really wanted to capture the feeling and the healing of a woman. My gift to this world is my voice, it’s like my prayer to the world. I’ve been so blessed and privileged that many people have gotten to hear my voice. It seems like the rights to one’s self-expression and their voice shouldn’t be legally allowed to be taken away. But in my case, that’s what happened to me for 20 years.

So, I wanted to really capture in song what it sounds like for a woman to regain the rights back to the thing that is her gift to the world. I wanted to capture that entire journey of healing, freedom, reclaiming my joy, falling in love with myself as I am, and I want to give that gift to the world because, like you were just talking about, Bob, it’s not always meant to connect you to other people. Art can be a very selfish act when you’re creating it; at least it is for me when I write songs. I write songs because I need to get an emotion out of my body, but the alchemy of it is you create this thing and you have the courage and the bravery to put it out for mass judgment, which is a terrifying part of our jobs, but we have the balls to do it.

Through that emotional release for ourselves and that courage and through a fuck ton of judgment and hate, then people get to connect to you and find solace in our shared humanity. We realize that we are not alone, and we are all one, and we all do go through many of the same things. I really wanted to capture reclaiming my freedom. I wanted to capture that in song and I want to give that as a gift to the world, because everybody’s going through something. It might not be the same something, but everybody’s going through something or has been through something. And for me specifically, after what I’ve been through, I want people to see that my joy is still my right.

Bob: It’s really crazy when you think about how some of your newer fans have not been alive as long as you’ve been silenced. Some 15-year-old who doesn’t have a memory of you before you were going through these legal battles. And especially when you talk about putting your art out there for criticism.

Kesha: That judgment piece is something that I’ve been working a lot on. To put out art is a fight. You have to want it and you have to fight for that. It’s expensive and it takes up your greatest asset, your time. On social media, where everyone judges the shit out of everybody else, from your body to your art to anything else… I’m trying to heal from decades of projected judgments that I’ve internalized, and it’s become my truth. That’s what I was trying to dance out of my body this weekend, because that shit gets stored in your body. I realized I haven’t danced for fun in years, because people make fun of the way I dance. And it’s probably just some 12-year-old in their mom’s basement on Twitter, but that becomes my higher power’s voice. That’s a problem. So, I’m trying to change any of my own personal judgments into curiosity. It’s a really beautiful gift. I was given an exercise and I would challenge the world: when you start feeling judgmental, what if you flip that into curiosity?

Bob: Yeah, that’s actually really powerful. I’m not gonna say I’m not judgy. We recognize it in ourselves.

Kesha: I’m judgy as hell.

Bob: Which allows us to see it in others.

Kesha: My inner critic tells me things where your mom or your therapist will be like, “No, that’s just your inner critic.” Then when you see it on the cover of a magazine or somebody else is writing it on the internet, it is like an externalized inner critic. That’s something that really fucks with your head for me.

Bob: When someone out there vocalizes your worst fear about yourself.

Kesha: Yes.

Bob: Then you can really be like, “I fucking knew it. I should have never released this. I should have never worn that outfit. I should have never danced. I should have never gone to that one show. I knew as soon as I got off stage, I knew the show was shit.” And then this one person on TikTok or Twitter, or this critic in this magazine or this newspaper, confirmed what I knew: that this was shit.

Kesha: The freedom I’m trying to get back every day is being okay with where I am in my journey. Like you said, freedom is not a destination. The desire for freedom is ongoing and the freedom to really embody oneself fully on a world stage takes so much courage. I’m really trying to break through this judgment piece to find true freedom to be able to play and have fun. It’s a political act.

I want people to see that my joy is still my right.

Thank you both for being so open and making art that speaks to your individual grief and pain and joy that can then reach people on a global scale and help them feel less alone. For some lighter conversation: Kesha, you’ve seen Bob on Drag Race. Who would your Snatch Game character be? And Bob, which of Kesha’s songs do you relate to most?

Bob: Okay, first of all, I’m an actual Animal. I’m a massive Kesha fan. Probably my favorite Kesha song that I relate to the most is “Crazy Kids.” It might be because I’m a club kid. She’s describing things that I’m actively doing while I’m hearing the song for the first time. I used to take the train to work in my crazy outfits and people would think that I was one of the “crazy” people. You know what I mean?

But my hot take is that when it comes to lyricism and rapping, Kesha is lowkey a rapper. When you listen to the actual lyrics, Kesha is lowkey spitting bars. I mean, she’s singing them, but when you look at the cleverness of the word play, you’re like, This is a bar. Give this woman her flowers.

Kesha: Thank you. As a goofy white bitch from Tennessee, it’s always made me giggle when people refer to me as a rapper. I’m going to be honest.

Bob: I be like, She is spitting! This white bitch from Tennessee is lowkey spitting right now. Who gave her permission?

Kesha: You know what? I’ll take it. Speaking of Snatch Game: Detox, who we both know, one of my favorite things I’ve ever seen is when Detox was me on Snatch Game. Did you see that?

Bob: Of course I saw that. I don’t think it was her best performance.

Kesha: I loved it. To be a pop star, you have to be a little narcissistic. So, I love when people pay homage to me. To be a pop star, you also have to be a voyeur. There’s very specific kinks that come out, psychologically, if you’re a pop star and I’ve been coming to terms with my kinks.

I mean, I’m such a Little Monster. I would love to [play] Gaga, I really would.

Bob: I think you have a good Britney Spears in you, too.

Kesha: Don’t we all have a Britney in us? Come on.

Bob: We do.

Kesha: Yes, she is one of my mothers, as well.

Bob: Shout out. I also love how often you work with rappers. When all the rappers did the “Sleazy” remix, that was a really great moment in time. I’m a big André 3000 fan.

Kesha: Me too. Him pivoting and making this beautiful spiritual flute album is so in alignment with my soul. It’s such a beautiful thing to witness from one of the greatest rappers that’s ever lived. He’s probably my celebrity crush, if I were going to pick one.

Bob: He’s very hot. He’s very, very, very beautiful.

Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans? As we’ve spoken about, this is such a scary time to be in America, specifically.

Bob: I would love to be able to stand in front of my fans and be like, “Everything’s fantastic and don’t you worry.” But I don’t think that’s real. Sometimes things get worse before they get better. Sometimes things get worse and they don’t get better. But you have to remember the resilience of queer people, of Black people, of women, of any marginalized person to exist despite it all. To exist no matter what.

Kesha: I love that. Trans visibility day has me thinking about what a huge support the trans community has been. The queer community has been my community and has always been there for me. That’s where I belong. And beyond that, to any marginalized person, like you were just saying, I want everyone out there to know that they have an ally, someone that is a warrior. I will not lay down, I will not be quiet about basic human rights. And as someone who’s had her freedoms taken away from her and fought like hell to get them back, I’m going to echo that throughout my work until the day that I die.

My mission with this album is to create a safe space for people to feel fully embodied and liberated. That’s what this album stands for, that’s what I’m going through personally. This summer, I’m going on tour. If you want to find your community and find a safe space for you to fully embody exactly who you are and be celebrated, I invite you to come join us. I would like to start a revolution of love. I want to create a traveling summer of love, a community of love. I want to give all of us a place to come and be ourselves.

When I look at the current administration, I have never seen a less embodied group of individuals waving around their chainsaws. It’s terrifying. In the midst of all this chaos, the most political thing we could do is love ourselves and love one another and create a space where we can come together and spread as much love as possible. So that’s my objective for the summer.

I would challenge the world: when you start feeling judgmental, what if you flip that into curiosity?

Bob: That’s amazing. I’m not trying to start a generational war, but millennials are winning so hard right now. Beyoncé’s back, Lady Gaga’s back, Lizzo’s back, Kesha’s back.

Kesha: Let’s go.

Bob: I will jump at a chance to see you. I was listening to your album, it is so fucking good. My office manager here will tell you I was literally tearing up.

Kesha: Really?

Bob: I knew the moment “JOYRIDE.” dropped, I was like, It’s about to be on.

Kesha: My god, it’s on.

Bob: They’re not going to know what fucking hit them, honey.

Photography: Brett Loudermilk
Art direction: Zain Curtis
Styling: Marta Del Rio
Makeup: Leo Chaparro
Hair: Eduardo Ponce
Nails: Britney Tokyo
Production design: Krystall Schott, Michael Avina

Lighting: Gilles O’Kane
Digitech and lighting: Jason Macdonald
BTS: Brady Berryhill
Photo assistant: Alasdair Flagella
Production assistant: Ricardo Diaz
Styling assistant: Grace Taylor
Nail assistant: Tohko Nishimoto

Extras: William Sibley, Jonnie Reinhart, Brenna Jordan, Gabriella Lester, Jackie Cotter, Amor Morales, D’mahdnes

Editor-in-chief: Justin Moran
Managing editor: Matt Wille
Editorial producer: Angelina Cantú
Music editor: Erica Campbell
Interview: Bob The Drag Queen
Story: Hilton Dresden
Cover design: Jewel Baek
Publisher: Brian Calle