Kesha Drops Country-Pop Single “Yippee-Ki-Yay” With T-Pain, Unveils New Album ‘Period’

Kesha dropped a new country-pop single “Yippee-Ki-Yay” with T-Pain on Thursday, the third single off her upcoming sixth album, which she at last revealed on Thursday will be titled . (Period, the punctuation mark).

“Yippee-Ki-Yay” follows “Joyride” and “Delusional,” both of which dropped last year, and it unites two of the more iconic voices of the late aughts/early 2010s pop sound. The track was produced by Pink Slip and Nova Wav and marks the latest in country sounds making their way into the pop music sector the genre has surged in recent years. Still, it’s not at all far-removed for T-Pain, who’d previously spoken to The Hollywood Reporter about ghostwriting country songs.

Kesha had been teasing a new album in recent weeks, updating the album art on all her previous albums to have giant pink circles covering much of the original art.

Period will release on July 4, Independence Day, an apt drop date as Period marks Kesha’s first album as an independent artist after releasing her first five albums through RCA Records and producer Dr. Luke’s Kemosabe Records.

She’d been in a bitter decade-long legal dispute with Luke, real name Lukasz Gottwald, for years after accusing him of sexual assault and suing the producer, while he denied the allegations and filed a defamation suit of his own. They settled in 2023, with Kesha saying in a statement at the time that she was “looking forward to closing the door on this chapter of my life and beginning a new one.”

2023’s Gag Order was her final album with RCA and Kemosabe, and last year she announced her own label Kesha Records, launched through Warner Music Group’s independent distribution and label services arm ADA.

“My name has become synonymous with transparency, integrity, and safety, and I want to ensure that these values are upheld for myself and any future artists signed to my label,” Kesha said at the time. “Music has the power to connect the world, and I aspire for my work to be a beacon of light and goodness. I am excited to take control of my narrative and rewrite my story in the music business.”