Kesha - Singer-songwriter, Timeline and Childhood

Kesha was born to Patricia Rose Sebert in California, USA on March 1, 1987. Her mother was a known singer-songwriter and a respectable name in the music industry, which made it somehow easy for Kesha to make a career in music. However, when Kesha was born, the financial condition of the family wasn’t good. Patricia was single mom and was taking care of Kesha and her older brother, Lagan. Kesha has openly admitted that she has no clue at all about her father, but she suspects Mick Jagger to be her real biological father.

Kesha accompanied her mother to her performances while she took care of her backstage during the shows. Upon receiving a deal from a music company for her song-writing skills, Patricia moved to Nashville, Tennessee, when Kesha was 4 years old. She saw Kesha’s interest towards the art and constantly urged her to sing songs whenever she felt sad or depressed. Kesha heeded the advice and accompanied her mother to all her recordings to learn the basics.

Kesha attended Franklin High School and Brentwood High school and has admitted that she was severely bullied by her classmates for her unconventional style sense. She played musical instruments in the marching band at school and while at the college, she started taking lessons in song-writing from her mother.

Kesha admits that she was a good student and secured great marks in SATs, but she dropped out of college to pursue a career in music. Kesha then put all her attention and efforts into music while performing with her brother’s band.

At the age of 18, Kesha was signed on by Dr. Luke’s Kemosabe Entertainment for her first big breakthrough. Dr. Luke was impressed by her demo recordings and said that he saw an artist with furious energy and skills to make it big in the music world. Kesha provided background vocals for Paris Hilton right around that time for her single ‘Nothing in the world’. She also contributed to Britney Spears’s ‘Lace and Leather’ which helped her polish her skills as a musician.

These small gigs were getting her in touch with the big stars, but her own personal claim to fame came when she provided vocals for ‘Right Round’ by Flo Rida, which was produced by Dr. Luke in 2008. The song was a groundbreaking success and the stage was set for Kesha to become a star musician. The song was a no.1 hot 100 hit for a long time and was later featured in the hit comedy The Hangover’.

Kesha then signed on with RCA and in 2010, she came up with her debut album ‘Animal’ which proved to be a massive hit and particularly one song from the album ‘Tik Tok’ set all the musical charts on fire and Kesha became an instant celebrity. The song, to this day, holds the record to be among the most downloaded digital singles in the history. The album featured collaborations with several big artists such as Dr. Luke, Max Martin and Benny Blanco and climbed up to the top of Billboard 200.

Later in 2010, Kesha introduced her very first extended play ‘Cannibal’ to her fans. It featured nine songs in total and two songs particularly titled ‘We R Who We R’ and ‘Blow’ made their entry in several charts. She followed this overwhelming success with the release of ‘I am the dance commander, I command you to dance’ in 2011.

In 2012, she was invited to collaborate on an album titled ‘The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends’, where she collaborated with Biz Markie on a track titled ‘2012’.

Dr. Luke released Kesha’s second studio album which was titled ‘Warrior’ and influenced by rock music. It followed the success of Kesha’s first album by constantly staying in the top 10 charts of most lists. Two singles ‘C’mon’ and ‘Crazy Kids’ were met with critical and commercial acclaim, making Kesha one of the most influential musicians of this generation.

Kesha then went on to a world tour with Pitbull, and the duo later came together for a single titled ‘Timber’ which quickly became her third top single.

Her rising career came to a shocking halt in 2014, when she accused her mentor Dr. Luke of mental, physical and emotional abuse along with bad business practices. The entire scene threatened to destroy her career and she became inactive for quite some time.

She returned to performing in April 2016, when she performed at ‘Coachella’ for ‘True Colours’. The studio version of the song was released later that year.

Kesha is a hardcore environmentalist and an ordained minister. She has constantly raised her voice for homosexuals and performed their marriage ceremonies a number of times. Upon asking about her own sexuality, there has not been a straight answer from her. She has said that love has nothing to do with gender and she loves everyone equally.

Kesha suffers from a severe eating disorder and has constantly gained and lost weight over the years since she has been in the limelight. She also has said that Dr. Luke is one of the reasons for her eating disorder as he body shamed her and told her to lose weight when he signed her. Kesha has been to the rehab to cure this disorder.

As of May 2017, Kesha’s net worth is USD 9 million, and as a result of constant legal battles against Dr. Luke, she has lost quite a lot of her money.