Kesha is so in right now in a way she has never been before.
The pop icon known for a slew of hits in the early 2010s like “Tik Tok” (released well before the app) and the recent “Boy Crazy” is in renaissance mode. Kesha is days away from a global tour, with the first US leg since her acrimonious split with her former label and a drawn out legal battle with a producer who she accused of physical and sexual abuse and discrimination. After launching her own label in September 2024, Kesha is ready to get back into the creative fray—and to challenge practices endemic to the music business that take power away from artists.
That plan includes a new social app, or at least the vision for one, which she calls Smash. Kesha announced the service on Instagram today. Kesha’s goal is to make a dedicated space online for people in the music industry to collaborate and connect.
“I think we realize what systems are fucking broken and we smash them,” Kesha says.
That kind of confidence has long infused the artist’s work, but it stands out in a different way now. Since going independent, Kesha has gotten into ghost hunting, given a TED Talk, and discussed living in a clothing-optional “hippie commune.” On July 4, 2024, she released the comeback song, “Joy Ride,” which listeners hailed as the return of the “Queen of recession pop.” (A term meant for the bubbly, feel good pop songs that people credit with helping them weather the economic turmoil of the early ‘10s.)
Kesah has a new album, her sixth, coming out July 4, 2025 called “.” (Period.) You’ll note the symbolism of dropping both single and album—her first on her own label—on Independence Day. At the end of May, she is kicking off what she’s pitching as her most explosive tour—her first in the US as an independent artist. (“I want everyone shitting themselves in unison at Madison Square Garden,” Kesha says.)
The musician is also hoping to build Smash, a sort of social media app specifically for people in the music industry. She describes her plans for Smash as, “LinkedIn for music creators with a Fiverr-style marketplace where you can offer your services or hire each other.” All while being able to retain creative rights and not give away a cut of the creator’s intellectual property. This egalitarian platform, which Kesha mentioned in an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show and currently exists in the form of a website asking for email signups, hasn’t launched yet, and is still in the funding phase.
Kesha joins the Zoom call for our chat with her camera off at first. We exchange pleasantries, then she asks if she should turn her camera on. I say it might be nice to know that she’s not an AI deepfake or anything, and she agrees, with one caveat: “Let me put some clothes on first,” she says. “The only place a popstar can be naked is in her home.”
After a few minutes, Kesha emerges on camera, clad in a beige colored Joy Division shirt, her blonde streaked hair damp and pulled back. On the wall behind her is a framed copy of Rolling Stone with her face on the cover. She grins, buzzing with energy, ready to get into it.
“There we go,” she says. “Professional.”
Kesha has always had a freewheeling nature. It’s even more present and joyful now that her split from her longtime record label has made her, in her words, a “free woman.”
Before the call, her press flaks had told me more sensitive issues like Dr. Luke (the former producer) and rapper P-Diddy (who Kesha mentioned in her most famous song and is currently on trial for sex trafficking charges) and even a sort-of-beef with Katie Perry were “off the table” as topics of conversation. But Kesha, unchained and unabashed, had none of that self conscious restraint and brought up most of these things on her own, almost right away.
She talked about her vision for a social service like Smash that aims to protect artists and foster collaboration, how she got the idea during a psychedelic trip, the tech that makes her show work (including AI, something she’s gotten heat for using before), and whether she claims her crown as the queen of recession pop.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
WIRED: You’re getting ready to go on tour very soon. How are you feeling?
Kesha: Oh, I’m really excited. It’s my first US tour as a free woman, which means I actually have the legal rights to my own voice for the first time since I was 18 years old. So this is my first tour that I get to really embody that freedom and I’m excited. I really can feel a difference.
Not to give anything away, but can you give any sort of preview of that?
You want the tea?
Yeah! Details of the show with that newfound freedom.
Totally. I think I’m healing in real time. I got my freedom a year and a couple months ago and have had to keep a lot inside during what I’ve gone through. That’s just the reality. It’s been like this surrender to imperfection. It’s very vulnerable, but it’s exciting because I feel like my fans are here for me and here for that.
So for the tour, the tea I can spill is that I’ve been healing by listening to some of my old songs that maybe have had negative connotations in my mind. In the past, I would just not play those songs, but that’s not fair to not only myself, and the song, but most of all to my fans. I’m healing my relationships with these songs and so potentially on tour you might be hearing some healing in real time. Some songs maybe I thought I would never play again.
Any ones that you want to tease at all?
Well, I’ll just say people are going to fucking shit themselves. That’s what I’ll say.
Great. Beautiful. OK, that’s what you want in a show.
I want everyone shitting themselves in unison at Madison Square Garden.
There’s a first time for everything. You’ve got a new album coming out too. How do you think about the process of making new music on top of revisiting your old stuff? How do you balance the two efforts?
Oh, I don’t balance anything. I’ve decided to live entirely in what is my purpose, which is I live, eat, breathe, and sleep just being an artist and a creator and a creative. It’s now branching out. It’s not just songs. At first in my life I thought it was just music, but I’ve just fully surrendered to the fact that I’m just a full blown weirdo. I have wild ideas and those turn into magical creations. I’m really blessed and lucky, but I’m just embracing that. Even most recently, alchemizing the experience I went through that was so hard and so painful into my new company, my new app Smash.
Let’s talk about that. What is the goal of Smash? Why did this feel like the thing to do?
Honestly, it makes my entire life make sense for me. After what I’ve gone through and seeing the things that I’ve seen, seeing that the system is really broken. It’s gatekeeping by people that can do what they want. I mean, we’re watching the Diddy trial in real time right now.
Right.
There are gatekeepers and they control access to other collaborators, other musicians, the community. And artists end up signing things without really having a ton of knowledge behind what they’re signing. At least, that’s happened to me. You can look through history and I’m definitely not the only one. That was really inspiring for me to start Smash. I want a place where artists and music makers of any kind can have community, they can collaborate, they can hire each other and retain all the rights to everything they create. There’s no gatekeeping of contacts.
Gatekeeping by rich, white, straight men, right?
Preach. Fucking preach.
The vision for this service, how does it work? How do people interact? Is it more social media, is it more industry backend? What’s the pitch of how it all functions?
Well, I think we just opened our seed round. We have our CTO Alan Cannistraro and we’re just starting to build this thing. I’m talking to all my people to make sure it’s exactly what artists need and what artists will use. So the exact how it’s going to work is what we’re trying to ensure the best version of—what every artist feels comfortable and safe using.
But the idea is community based. Think LinkedIn for music creators with a Fiverr-style marketplace where you can offer your services or hire each other.
Are you working with other artists? Are there any that you can say that you’re working with, or hint at? Who’s going to be on the platform, or is it just open for everybody?
Well, right now I’m actually having those conversations and it’s going to be a really interesting mix of people that know me, know what I stand for, have seen my integrity hard at work for the past 15 years. I’m starting there with those artists. I’m not going to name names. I want to be respectful to them.
Fair.
I feel very protective over artists. That’s how this whole app started, so soon we’ll be letting people know about that.
Gotcha. Do you think at all about how it competes? I’m thinking of platforms like Bandcamp, or Soundcloud, or musician centered services like that. Does this feel competitive?
I think the biggest difference is I really want this to feel like artists can come to artists. People can ask about what they’re signing and who they’re signing with. Ask, I love the guitar player on that song of yours, I want to hire him. If you want to jam, my fantasy is there’s a place you can jam. I’m trying to figure out really how it’s made for the artist by the artist. As artists, we don’t have a hub, don’t have a spot, we don’t have that LinkedIn-style place. The more people supporting artists, the better.
Do I find it competitive? No. I kind of look at making pop songs in a similar way. If someone makes an incredible pop song, I just listen to it and it inspires me to make the best pop song I can make. But mine is going to be uniquely mine, fueled by my history and my stories. So I think the more the merrier, people supporting artists. Let’s fucking go.
Are you going to be able to listen to music on the platform or just find the people that you’re wanting to talk to?
We’re in discovery on the logistics of the backend of all of that. My main goal is to help people find community, collaborate, create, retain the rights to those creations, not need to sign a deal to get those contacts and be able to hire and be hired. The backend of it is not necessarily what Smash is focusing on.
Yeah, OK. So getting your songs on Spotify or whatever is not part of the goal here, right?
We’re not trying to be the player. We can help. Once the creation is done and the artist is done with it, we can provide some help on how to get to the next steps. But we’re not trying to compete with Spotify or Apple.
We’re just trying to give a safe space for people to create community, connect, create music, be hired, and hire all under the understanding that it’s a safe place where you retain the rights to whatever you create.
How did the name Smash come about?
To be honest with you, I was doing a plant medicine journey and this all came to me in my brain and it felt like God made me understand why I have gone through what I’ve gone through. And since then it’s been affirmed over and over that this is really necessary.
Are you able to say what kind of plant? It’s just … I’m a journalist so I have to ask for the details.
Fine. It was a mushroom.
Oh, OK.
C’mon.
Alright, alright, I mean that’s not the worst one. The-
Worst one! They’re the most beautiful ones!
Fair, fair. I don’t know if you would pitch this as a tech platform, but I do have to ask about tech because again, this is WIRED. In what ways do you use technology? What is the balance of that hippie-commune-nature side and technology?
Oh my god, I’ve been trying to figure this out myself. I’ve had a pretty fractured relationship in my younger years with technology and it’s been totally healed in this process of realizing that this is how we connect to each other. This is our new form of community.
When Napster happened, it shattered the songwriters’ trust in tech. I would love to be a part of the solution of being someone that cares about making tech a safe place to come and be creative and collaborate. And I feel like it’s really part of my purpose. I met all these amazing people who work in tech that are now helping me with my show and I would like to make it the most tech-forward show because tech connects us all. It’s a really beautiful thing and I’m healing this relationship with this place that used to be a hurtful place and now it’s actually the future. I feel like we’re building the next dimension.
I want to make the most tech-forward show anybody’s ever seen. I want fucking lasers coming out and playing instruments and a glove that controls the lights and the sounds. We’re trying to figure out how to make all this happen because I realized that this is the future. It’s kind of like AI.
How?
We, as a society, have opened Pandora’s box. To try to hate it doesn’t make sense. Try to work with it in a way that’s respectful to artists and still make sure artists have worth in society. There’s a way that we can just work with it but also keep humanity in mind.
It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I used to be just a hippie in the woods and now I’m like the hippie in the woods that’s going to go on stage and have the most tech-forward show you’ve ever fucking seen. Because both have incredible value. Tech is our evolution. I want to not only embrace it, but as an artist, I feel like it’s my responsibility, if I’m truly being a fucking artist. I’ve already made the choice to reflect culture back to culture. So if I’m going to do that, how am I going to sit here and push away arguably the biggest thing we’ve done in I don’t even know how long. It’s a really big deal, what we’re doing on the tech side of the world and I feel like I can’t fight it.
I want to utilize it as a tool and I think we should all just keep in mind there are artists out here that deserve to be valued and deserve to be paid. Hence making a platform like Smash, which is blending the two things. It’s blending real humans that need to get paid, that have value and they have worth, with the capabilities you can get from tech, which is connecting people.
But I’m excited. I feel like this is my purpose, coming together in a way that is really fucking exciting. I’m thinking about future generations of artists. I’m thinking about my future in terms of really leaning into what’s capable. There are so many brilliant people doing so many amazing, incredible things in tech, and I just want to dive in deeper.
What are the possibilities? I know they’re all probably going to read this or see this. Hit me up! I want to fuck. Shit. Up. Who wants to fuck some shit up? If you want to fuck some shit up, literally, on stage, culturally, if you’re kind of like an anarchist punk, if you think the system of the music business is fucked, whatever, if you want to fuck some shit up, come on!
Hell yeah.
I am going to share a story. At the height of my fame, I was playing arenas and I was wearing something I didn’t really want to be wearing and I was not eating food because I thought that’s what pop stars had to do.
And there was just a moment where I looked in the mirror and I was like, fuck, this is not who I am. I grew up on the Stooges, I grew up on Iggy Pop. No, it’s enough. And I quit playing these arenas and wearing the fucking bodysuit and not eating. I stopped doing that and I started a punk band called Yeast Infection, and I played dive bars.
Because when things are just not fucking it, I’m the girl that’s going to call it out and be like, this is not it. We’re going to do something else. So when I see what’s happening, for instance, what we’re seeing in court with the Diddy shit, obviously there’s something fucking broken. I think we can all agree about that. We don’t like seeing our artists sick and in pain. Nobody wants their artists like that. And if we want to see our artists well and healthy and in their fullest potential and the way that they want to be, we have to protect them and we have to pay them.
It’s really simple. If you like music, if you want your artists to just be able to pay rent, Smash is for you. We want to help connect artists, protect the artists. We don’t want to take any percentage of anything you make.
I just want people to have an alternate option than signing something with someone you don’t know who doesn’t know what it means to make your art. That is what I want.
Talking about economics … When “Joy Ride” came out (which whips ass by the way) people hailed it as the return of the “Queen of recession pop.” How do you feel about that term for your music? How do you create music for that moment?
Thank you! I’m a punk. I grew up a punk, so I thrive in poverty and chaos. That just is what it is.
Also, when the world is a little on fire—I think we can all agree it’s a little bit of a dumpster fire—I think people have not only heightened feelings, but you really have the need for some release, some fun and escapism. My goal has always been, since the second I started making music, to help people channel that pure childlike joy and not give a fuck what anybody else has to say about it.
At least for me, that’s my magic. When I can channel my purest form of “I’m safe and now I can make a safe place to play” is how I think about my app. It’s how I think about my tour, it’s how I think about my life, it’s how I think about my relationships. I want it to be a safe place to play. And I think when the world is on fire, a lot of people might need that more than when everything’s just fine.
I’m excited to create a safe place to play for myself and others for the rest of my life. I really am. And I can’t wait to see Madison Square Garden full of any and all kinds of people, feeling safe, having the best night of their lives. Being respected, being celebrated just as they are, whatever that means. Wherever you’re at in your journey, I cannot wait for that for myself and I can’t wait for that for them, and I can’t wait for that for New York fucking City.
Yeah. Well, and everybody shitting themselves simultaneously too, right?
I don’t actually—no, you know what? If you do shit yourself, I still love you. Feel free, I love you no matter what. So do your thing.
One last question that I feel like I have to ask is: What do you wake up in the morning feeling like these days?
God, you know what I’ve been feeling like recently? I feel like Athena.
Hell yeah.
She’s wise. She’s also not married. And she’s the biggest badass and she protects artists. So that’s who I’m channeling. Here’s a tour hot tip: I’m channeling a little Athena.
