Ke$ha went all in on It’s On With Alexa Chung yesterday. She kind of looks like Lady Gaga’s trashy (trashed?) cousin, in the best possible way.

Dressed like a glammed-up biker gang reject, Ke$ha, with bass player, DJ and backup-singer/dancer in tow, performed her cut, “Tik Tok.” With an American flag hanging in the background she hopped, rapped and sang her way through her hangover anthem.

Sadly, there was no Diddy appearance (the Bad Boy lends his heavy rhyme experience to the recorded version of the song). Would’ve been great to have seen his reaction to the side-hawk-rocking backup singer.

Ke$ha’s Animal album is due out in January and you can catch her on the Lilith Fair this summer.

‘We all were hanging out and I was so intimidated … but he was the nicest guy,’ she tells MTV News.

Ke$ha is having a moment. She just got booked on the Lilith Fair, and her single “Tik Tok” is burning up the charts. She has already collaborated with Flo Rida and Miley Cyrus and sang background for Britney Spears, so it’s no wonder she ended up teaming with Diddy in the studio.

“Diddy ended up on ‘Tik Tok’ because one morning, I woke up surrounded by a bunch of hot babes, and I was like, ‘I’m like Diddy, man,’ ” she told MTV News. “Then I wrote the first line of ‘Tik Tok,’ which is ‘Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy.”

Ke$ha then made the next logical step and took it to her producer, Dr. Luke, who also worked with her and Flo Rida on the hit “Right Round”, and the rest is pop-music history. “As fate would have it, I swear to you, about four hours later, Diddy called Luke for the first time ever saying we should do a song together some time,” she explained.

Diddy surprisingly also had a little bit of time in his very busy schedule to drop by the studio almost immediately to contribute his lines to “Tik Tok.” In the song, he raps, “Hey, what up girl?” and “Let’s Go.”

“He agreed to come in that day. It was so bizarre, but as fate would have it, happened in the course of hours,” he said. “We all were hanging out and I was so intimidated … but he was the nicest guy.”

Ke$ha’s debut album, Animal, is due January 5.

Ke$ha has said that she doesn’t like the double standard faced by women in the music industry.

The popstar sings about what men would look like naked in her track ‘Boots And Boys‘ and claimed that no-one would notice if she was a man talking about women that way.

“People are shocked by it, but if I were Guns ‘N’ Roses or Van Halen, no-one would be surprised,” she told The Observer. “Or a rapper – look at all those songs on the radio that are, like, ‘Girl go up and down the pole‘. I mean, dance for me dudes!”

Ke$ha added that she is frustrated by the double standard but continued: “But it’s life. I understand I’m supposed to be feminine and dainty, but I’m not.

“There are two sides to the coin. People are more impressed with things that I do because they almost treat you as if you’re handicapped if you’re a woman… people can be impressed that I can play a few chords on the guitar.”

The ‘Tik Tok’ singer also praised her mother for giving her “a very strong sense of who and what I am“.

“My mum’s a badass,” she added. “She has balls. You need that in this industry, in this world, to stand up for what you believe in. She taught me that you don’t need anybody else to validate anything. She wanted a child, she had me, she didn’t want a man to tell her when and what to do.

“I think that’s badass. She’s a strong woman, a total hippie.”

Pop sensation Ke$ha has promised that her debut album will be a “cheeky” and “funny” affair.

The 22-year-old singer – real name Kesha Sebert – is currently in the UK and US top 10, as well as No.1 in Australia, with her debut single ‘TiK ToK’.

Discussing the song’s appeal, she told DS: “I hope that it’s just kind of fun and unapologetically rambunctious. I just want people to party to it.”

She also predicted that fans of the single will enjoy her debut album Animal, which is due in January.

“I wrote every song on it so it’s all totally true stories about my life. It gets pretty specific and it’s pretty funny. I think it’s cheeky. If you like ‘Tik ToK’, I think you’ll like the record,” she said.

Press ‘play‘ below to watch our full interview with Ke$ha:

How do you pronounce a name that is spelt with a dollar sign? I ask because I am about to meet Ke$ha, this year’s hottest pop poppet, a 22-year-old tousled blonde who is so volcanically trendy that she has already been compared with Madonna and the Beastie Boys despite not actually having released her UK debut single yet.

But who cares when she acts the part of wild-eyed rock star so effectively? Today, she is wearing tiny cut-off denim shorts. Her feet are bare, her thin brown arms weighed down by heavy metallic bracelets and her fingernails slicked with black polish. Her mascara is mussed-up and she speaks with a throatiness that hints at a life of parties on the tour bus. “I could drink a pirate under the table,” she admits. “But last night wasn’t that late. It was only, like, 2am.”

Ke$ha’s first album, Animal, out early next year, is filled with what one critic calls “turbo-charged attitudinal electro-shock”. People are already calling her the new Lady Gaga.

Yes, Ke$ha is cool; so hip, in fact, that she feels no need to be constrained by boringly conventional things like the alphabet. Is the dollar sign meant to be taken as an ironic comment on the greed of the music industry? I wonder. And did she remember to change it into sterling when she flew into London? “The dollar sign, to be honest, was me taking the piss out of being broke,” she says in the Tennessee twang of her native Nashville. Earlier this year, when Ke$ha (pronounced Keh-sha) was an aspiring singer-songwriter, scraping a living in Los Angeles by waitressing and writing songs for other artists, a producer suggested she provide vocals for the Flo Rida cover of “Right Round”.

The song became a worldwide hit, reaching No1 in five countries, but Ke$ha never saw a cent. “I would hear my voice everywhere – I’d walk into a movie and it would be playing. I’d walk into Walgreens, the grocery store, and it was playing, at a time when I didn’t even have enough money to buy my groceries in, like, the dollar store.

“My friends and I would go to this bar where if you bought one shot of tequila, you got free tacos. We were sitting there, my song was playing, and my friend said, ‘Whatever. You don’t have any money. This is as good as it’s going to get.’ And she was right. One of my favourite memories in my entire life is sitting in that crappy bar with my friends eating free tacos. There is no correlation between happiness and amounts of money.”
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Kesha Sebert, the singer/songwriter better known as Ke$ha, is a class act.

She has a dollar sign tattoed on her hand, inked over the spot of skin where she licks salt before slamming tequila shots; she recounts being trapped in a hotel elevator that she says went haywire after she provoked “ghosts” by joking around; she rambles excitedly about the psychic powers of narwhales — “the unicorn of the sea;” and, she asks if it’s okay to use the ladies’ room during her phone interview.

Her naughty qualities are part of her charm, as her electro-pop single, “Tik Tok,” inspired by a night of epic partying, currently sits at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 6 on Hot Digital Songs. The track is a constant reminder of the morning after, when she opened her eyes to find herself “surrounded by these foxy babes,” thinking: “This is what P. Diddy must feel like,” she tells Billboard.

Before her recent success and bad girl antics, the 22-year-old Los Angeles native was eating free tacos, and, at one point, living out of a gold 1978 Trans Am. She scored her big break earlier this year as a featured vocalist on Flo Rida’s “Right Round,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in February and became the motivation behind that dollar sign tattoo.

“I got it because I was being ironic. I didn’t make any money off the Flo Rida song — no one knew it was me,” she says nonchalantly. “Whatever. I’m money — I don’t need money. I think people can stand to take themselves just a little less seriously. I’m fighting the war against pretension.”

That same month, she signed a deal with RCA Records, and now, Ke$ha is prepping the early 2010 release of her debut album, tentatively titled “Animals.”

If Ke$ha is serious about anything, though, it’s self-motivation. Case in point: she once snuck into Prince’s house to ask him to produce her album. “If you visualize what you want and you go for it and you work your ass off, I think that you can realize your own realities,” she says.

It’s that same no-limitation attitude that supplies her with the stories for her upcoming set, which features production from Dr. Luke and as well as collaborations with Max Martin and Benny Blanco. “Every song on the record is totally about my life,” she says.

Ke$ha is currently touring, backed by a DJ, a bassist and a keytar player, and armed with a glitter cannon. “If you come to a live show, it’s a sensory assault,” she warns. “You will leave covered in sweat, beer, glitter, and, just maybe, you’ll get a special edition Ke$ha condom. If it breaks, you have to name you daughter or son after me.”

When I was first asked to do this, I got really excited. “What?! I get to speak to that one from the Sugababes (mark II)? OMG!”
Sadly it wasn’t Keisha, the feisty little number, but America’s latest “alternative” female pop star, Ke$ha (don’t you dare forget that dollar sign) who had just vaulted to the top of our very own top 4o hit-parade. For those of you who don’t know she’s a 22 year-old singer who prides herself on irreverent lyrics, messy blonde hair, ripped black leggings and Jack Daniels before breakfast. I rang her up to find out her top 5 metal bands, and chat about the time she broke into Prince’s house.

How are you Ke$ha?
Good. I’m in L.A. at this hotel, and they put me in the ‘Scarface’ room. The machine gun from the movie is on the wall. It’s kinda cool, really gross and cheap.

Is there fake blood on the walls?
Maybe. Probably.

So, what are your top five metal bands?
1. KISS because they put on a kick ass live show and don’t hold back on the face paint and fire.
2. Valient Thorr because Valient really knows how to command the audience.
3. Black Sabbath have the best fucking jams ever. PUT SOME SABBATH ON!
4. Guns n’ Roses because Slash is the epitome of fucking rock and roll
5. Last but not least, AC/DC for having the catchiest songs but still being so badass and punk. I actually met Robert Plant recently.

How was it?
Oh my god, I almost pissed my pants. I don’t know if there is a god, but there is a Robert Plant. He told me that I reminded him of one of the girls in The Runaways, and then we talked about Africa. Fucking amazing.

Tell me about breaking into Prince’s house
I did not break in

You did
Look, in life if you want something you just have to go and get it, and I wanted him to be on my record so I just thought, “Fuck it!” As I snuck in I got wedged under his fence. There was this guy gardening and he refused to pull me through so I said, “I’ll give you five dollars, don’t be a cunt”. Everything in Prince’s house was purple, and there were pictures of him everywhere.
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“Before I leave, I brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack.” “The party don’t start until I walk in.” “Gonna smack him if he’s getting too drunk.” No, these aren’t excerpts from Kate Moss’s secret diary, but choice lines from Ke$ha’s debut single ‘TiK ToK‘. Intrigued by this brazen hussy of a pop starlet – who also sang on Flo Rida’s ‘Right Round’ earlier this year – we hooked up with her for a chat. Before you read on, a brief warning: Ke$ha shares her favourite word with Joan Rivers and she really isn’t afraid to use it.

How would you introduce Ke$ha to the uninitiated?
“I’m all about irreverence and youthfulness and playfulness and taking the p**s out of life. We’re in a recession and there are wars happening, so when it comes to music, I wanna give people something that brings them joy. There are artists who do more serious acoustic stuff, and I really admire them, but what I want to bring to the table is just f***ing fun. Just because I do pop doesn’t mean I’m a c**t, you know.”

How did you land your record deal?
“I was signed by an amazing producer called Dr Luke. I was just sitting at home one day and he and Max Martin called my house. I didn’t understand how amazing it was at that moment, but then I looked online and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is a big deal!’ They found out about me through a friend of a friend and signed me pretty quick.”

Did you get nervous heading into the studio with such proven hitmakers?
“I used to, but then I realised we’re all artists and we all get insecure. You’re never going to produce great music from a place of insecurity. You just have to go in there and lay your balls on the table and do whatever you can do to write a great song. It either happens or it doesn’t. Y’know, everybody writes sh***y songs sometimes.”

What’s the story behind ‘TiK ToK’?
“I think one of my biggest strengths is being able to tell my story in a way that’s unique from other artists. ‘TiK ToK’ is about how I woke up one morning surrounded by all these gorgeous women who I live with. I was like, ‘This must be what being P Diddy feels like’. That was the first line of the song, so I took it to Dr Luke and he said, ‘Well, what did you last night with all these beautiful chicks?’ ‘TiK ToK’ became the story of this one epic night out just tearing it down with my best friends.”
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This was never going to be an ‘if’ hit, it was always a ‘when’. From the very first time Ke$ha got on that gold bike, her chart success with this dirty little ditty was only ever a matter of time. And no, that’s not supposed to be a pun on the song’s title.

I mean it would’ve been a good one if it WAS, but I didn’t do it on purpose.

The fact that I’m writing this a few weeks before the CD hits the shelves, while in the sure knowledge that people are already downloading this in sizeable numbers is neither here nor there. It’s a hit, a palpable hit, as Shakespeare would say.

OK, fair enough, a certain amount of the ground work for this has already been done by her Ladiness of GaGa, this being something of a lost sibling to ‘Just Dance’ in places, but that doesn’t mean Ke$ha has nothing to bring to the party. She’s no lady, for starters, and she’s pretty gaga…

That was a cheap shot, something Ke$ha clearly knows a fair amount about, if her slurred tales of drunken nights out and general terribly bad behaviour are anything to go by. She does make it sound kinda fun though. OK, LOTS of fun. In her world, it’s always happy hour, always ladies night, and if things get messy at the end, well that’s just proof that you’re having a good time.

Pop songs are allowed to say stuff like this, because they are short. They only ever aim to capture one tiny moment in time. It’s not exactly health and safety, but there again, when was the last time health and safety claimed to look hot on a stage, mic in hand?

Exactly, people should know their jobs and stick to them.

For example, mine is to tell you again that this has ‘hit’ written all over it, you just can’t see it cos it’s too damn dirty.

Four stars

Ke$ha’s in town, bitches!

WAPS was lucky enough to catch ‘TiK ToK’ singer Ke$ha at her London showcase yesterday, and she kindly found time afterwards to sit down and have a chat with us. Delightful!

Read on to find out about her forthcoming debut album, what she thinks of P Diddy and Flo Rida, and what her Halloween costume of choice is. Loving your work, Ke$ha.

WAPS: Hi Ke$ha, first things first – excellent gig this week.

Ke$ha: I had so much fun, thank you for coming!

W: It was our pleasure. You’re also supporting Calvin Harris during this visit, aren’t you?

K: I am. I’m playing again with him again tonight [at London’s Forum] but then I have to go back to the states to finish my record.

W: Any plans to collaborate with Calvin?

K: I hope so, I would love to – this record is pretty much almost done but I’d love for him to do a remix, or something for the next record.

W: Calvin does give good remix.

K: Oh yeah.
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Ke$ha has released a video for her fans in New Zealand to thank them for making her song Tik Tok the number one single in the country. The video, released to YouTube, shows the singer with the words I (heart) NZ written on her inner lip and “#1″ scrawled on her fingers.

“I just wanted to say thank you. You guys are the jam. You’re the first country I’ve ever gone number one in,” she says.

She goes on to say, “I’m so excited..can’t wait to come visit you guys.”

Ke$ha also jokes in the short video that “Um, I would’ve written this on my boob but my manager wouldn’t let me.”

This is the second week Ke$ha’s single Tik Tok has been at number one on the New Zealand Top 40 chart. The top spot was previously help by David Guetta and Akon for their song Sexy Bitch. The song is also holding off tough competition from Jay Sean with his song Down and New Zealand’s own Gin with her hit Oh My.

Tik Tok debuted this week at number 79 on the US Billboard charts. Ke$ha also previously appeared on Flo Rida’s chart-topping single Right Round earlier this year.

Details of her album are still unknown but it is expected to be released later this year or early next year. There are currently four unreleased new songs streaming on her MySpace page. Included is a cover version of This Love, originally recorded by Australian duo The Veronicas. The song was written by Ke$ha and Toby Gad in 2007.

New Zealand’s own Kids Of 88, who nearly topped the charts with their single My House earlier this year, have also completed an official remix of Tik Tok that is expected to be released soon, and are number one on her MySpace top eight.

We know you’ve worked with pop geniuses like Dr Luke and Max Martin on your new album. Are there any other exciting collaborations you can tell us about?
I collaborated with Pitbull recently, and I worked with Nicky Avalon. I’m touring with him in the States. I also duetted with Taio Cruz on a song called Dirty Picture, and on my album I’ve worked with the keyboard player from Scritti Politti and Greg Kurstin, who’s done some stuff with Lily Allen. I wrote some songs with my mom as well. Pretty much everyone I’ve worked with has been exciting!

Is your mum a singer too?
She used to be, now she’s an amazing songwriter! She helped me figure it out.

Will the earlier songs like Boots and Boys and Backstabber also appear on the album?
I think so! I definitely think they’ll stay on the record. Those are my babies!

There are lots of feisty female popstars in the charts at the moment, so who do you see as your biggest competition or your biggest inspiration?
I don’t really think of it as competition, but it’s amazing that there are others strong females doing fun music, it doesn’t have to be cookie cutter, bland, vanilla pop anymore. I’m excited to be in the same genre of music as those others. I listen to older music and a lot of country music, so I’m not up on what’s the hottest of the hot in the pop world.

Is your family much like the one featured in your video?
No, it was just for fun. My family’s totally crazy! Just as free-spirited as I am, and just as eccentric, and rambunctious and hilarious. They’re a lot of fun!

When you were trying to break into the music business, did you ever consider auditioning for a talent show like American Idol?
No, cos I write a lot of my own music. That’s all about voice and looks and I feel like I bring different things to the table than just that. I really wanted to be able to represent my own writing and my own personal style.

Have you been to London before? What do you think of the UK so far?
I love it over here! I would definitely consider having my own place here. You guys have so much cooler shit than we do in the States!

Are there any British singers or bands you like to listen to at the moment?
Yeah! All the music here is brilliant. I just went to the Q Awards, and I met Robert Plant, who is one of my idols. Amy Winehouse was there too. As for British bands, I love Kasabian. You guys definitely know what’s up, way more than Los Angeles!

And finally, I’m coming down to your showcase tomorrow night, so I wondered what we can expect? How do you plan to make sure everyone there remembers you?
I have two words for you: glitter canon! All I want people to remember when they think of me is glitter.