Review
Genre and Mood
Kelis’s “Sugar Honey Iced Tea” is R&B with a pop shine, playful and romantic, and above all relaxed: a song that takes its time on an album better known for its loudest hit.
Song Summary
It is the tenth track on Tasty, Kelis’s third album, released in December 2003 by Star Trak and Arista, and it runs three minutes and twenty-three seconds. Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo wrote it and produced it as the Neptunes, with Phil Tan mixing. Plugged In counted it among the album’s songs about love and devotion. The title is the memorable detail: the initials of sugar, honey, iced and tea spell a well-known swear word, a backronym that, Barry Popik’s research shows, has been in print since at least the 1970s.
Musical Breakdown
No source describes the track section by section, so the breakdown stays with what critics heard in it.
The Groove
Hot Press named the laidback groove of the song one of the album’s two best moments. AllMusic heard Tasty swinging between bouncy pop and laid-back soul; this is the second kind.
The Vocal
Ardy Reviews heard Kelis sing in a relaxed tone and called it one of her best vocal performances on the album, fitting well with Pharrell and Chad’s production.
Concepts in Focus
A groove is the feel that makes a rhythm move, and it can be urgent or easy. Critics singled this one out for being easy. On an album whose lead single was the brash “Milkshake”, a laid-back groove is a contrast, and it changes how the voice sits: there is room for it to lounge rather than push.
Kelis’s stage persona shifts from song to song on Tasty. Blender’s Joseph Patel wrote that she is as good playing a hair-twisting, gum-popping tart on this song as an all-grown-up character on “Trick Me”. The persona is part of the arrangement: a sweet, teasing voice to match a title that hides a curse inside a soft drink. Compare the tougher Kelis of Kelis, Terrar – Good Stuff, made with the same producers four years earlier.
Artistic Context
Kelis was the executive producer of Tasty. She returned to the Neptunes, who had shaped her earlier albums Kaleidoscope and Wanderland, and added new collaborators such as Raphael Saadiq, Dallas Austin and André 3000. The record debuted at number 27 on the Billboard 200, the best sales week of her career, and reached number 11 in the United Kingdom.
Impact and Reception
“Sugar Honey Iced Tea” was never a single; the album’s four singles were “Milkshake”, “Trick Me”, “Millionaire” and “In Public”. Tasty drew a Metacritic score of 80, and Hot Press and Ardy Reviews both picked this song among its best. Play it after “Milkshake” and hear how much she can do with less.
