page_title: Kesha
section_title: 2009–2011: Breakthrough, Animal, and Cannibal
hierarchical_section_title: Kesha / Career / 2009–2011: Breakthrough, Animal, and Cannibal
caption_attribution_description: English: The singer Kesha. Français&#160;: La chanteuse Kesha.
context_page_description: Kesha Rose Sebert is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, and actress. In 2005, at age 18, Kesha was signed to Kemosabe Records. Her first major success came in early 2009 after she was featured on American rapper Flo Rida's number-one single "Right Round".
  Kesha's music and image propelled her to immediate success. She has earned two number-one albums on the US Billboard 200 with Animal and Rainbow, and the top-ten records Warrior and High Road. Kesha has attained ten top-ten singles on the US Billboard Hot 100, including "Blah Blah Blah", "Your Love Is My Drug", "Take It Off", "Blow", "Die Young", "My First Kiss" with 3OH!3, and the chart-topping "Tik Tok", "We R Who We R", "Right Round" with Flo Rida, and "Timber" with Pitbull. "Tik Tok", at one point, was the best-selling digital single in history, selling over 16.5 million units internationally.
  Kesha's career was halted between Warrior and Rainbow due to a legal dispute with her former producer Dr. Luke, which has been ongoing since 2014. A series of lawsuits, known collectively as Kesha v. Dr.
context_section_description: After failing to negotiate with Lava Records and Atlantic Records in 2009, Kesha signed a multi-album deal with RCA Records. Having spent the previous 6 years working on material for her debut album, she began putting finishing touches to the album. For the album, she wrote approximately 200 songs. It was certified Platinum in the United States and had sold two million albums worldwide by September of that year. The album's lead single, "Tik Tok", broke the record in the United States for the highest sales week for a single, with 610,000 digital downloads sold in a single week, the highest ever by a female artist since digital download tracking began in 2003. It spent nine weeks at number one in the country and became the longest running number-one by a female artist on her debut single since Debby Boone and "You Light Up My Life" in 1977. As of 2019, "Tik Tok" has sold about 14 million copies worldwide, becoming the best-selling single in digital history and the best-selling digital single in history by a female solo artist. Subsequent singles from the album ("Blah Blah Blah", "Your Love Is My Drug" and "Take It Off") achieved similar commercial success, each reaching the top ten in Australia, Canada, and the United States. Kesha was also featured on two top ten singles by musician Taio Cruz and electropop duo 3OH!3.
  Kesha's deliberately unpolished aesthetic and juvenile stage persona, which she described as her own personality "times ten", quickly made her a deeply polarizing figure. Some of her critics found her output to be unsophisticated, while others felt that she was manufactured and lacked credibility. In May 2010, Kesha's former managers from DAS Communications Inc. filed a lawsuit against her, seeking $14 million from her for commissions on her RCA Records deal, alleging that she had extended the deadline for them to get her a major record label contract and squeezed them out of her career. Kesha launched her own lawsuit in October, citing the California-exclusive Talent Agencies Act and asking the California Labor Commissioner to declare her contract with DAS void because it had acted as an unlicensed talent agent while procuring work for her in California, where only licensed agents can do so. The case was settled in 2012 before the release of her second album. Kesha held a benefit concert on June 16, 2010, where all proceeds went to aid victims of the 2010 Tennessee floods in her hometown,  Nashville. She raised close to $70,000 from the event. She was a supporting act on the summer North American leg of Rihanna's Last Girl on Earth and was awarded Best New Act at the 2010 MTV Europe Music Awards.
  In November 2010, Animal was re-released with a companion extended play, Cannibal. The lead single taken from Cannibal, "We R Who We R", debuted at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. With two number ones and four top ten hits (among them her featured spot on 3OH!3's "My First Kiss") Kesha was named Hot 100 Artist of 2010 by Billboard magazine, with "Tik Tok" ranked as the best-performing song of the year in the US. The follow-up single from Cannibal, "Blow", also charted in the top ten on the Hot 100. By June 2011, Kesha had sold almost 21 million digital single downloads in the United States alone. In February 2011, Kesha embarked on her first headlining world tour, the Get Sleazy Tour. The tour was expanded with a summer leg due to the first leg selling out and spanned three continents. Kesha also co-wrote the song "Till the World Ends" for American popstar Britney Spears and was featured on the remix of the song along with Trinidadian rapper Nicki Minaj. After meeting Kesha at the 2010 Grammy Awards and guesting at a number of her concerts, rock singer Alice Cooper asked her to write lyrics for and vocally perform as a devil character on their duet track, "What Baby Wants", on Cooper's album Welcome 2 My Nightmare (2011).
  Kesha was named rights group Humane Society of the United States's first global ambassador for animal rights, for which she is expected to bring attention to such pra
caption: Kesha at French radio station NRJ in June 2010.
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