Kelis (pronounced Kuh-Lease) made a dramatic impact with her debut single, "Caught Out There". Dubbed the modern equivalent of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" and popularly perceived as "I Hate You So Much Right Now" - from the screamed invective/chorus that disrupted the staccato, futuristic R&B track - the single assuredly positioned the vocalist in a recent lineage that included TLC, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, Lauryn Hill and Macy Gray. An accompanying video made the singer's anger all the more explicit: her errant partner is shown bruised, bloodied and ultimately hospitalized. In the song's second verse, a gun is cocked while Kelis endearingly coos "I've got somethin' for y'all'. The sometime Ol" Dirty Bastard collaborator's nickname of Thunder Bitch seemed well utilized. The attendant Kaleidoscope was a similarly strident, graphic and lavishly styled collection of visionary R&B, funk, soul and hip-hop. The Eastern-influenced love song "Mafia" transformed a near-obligatory fixation with gang culture into disturbingly obsessive hip-hop romanticism on which Kelis pledges to die for her racketeering lover while on "Mars', the singer contemplates an escape to another planet but, in a grand statement of intent, opts to stay put and 'conquer the world' instead. Blending live musicianship with clipped, deceptively simple beats and corrupted playground melodies and orchestration, Kelis' New York writing/production team the Neptunes (aka Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo) were revealed - like Elliott's collaborator Timbaland - to be redefining modern soul/R&B production. More importantly, the release confirmed UK newspaper The Guardian's assertion that hip-hop and R&B are the only places where you can hear genuinely feminist pop anymore. Unfortunately support had drifted considerably by the time of Wanderland's release, which failed to ignite any sales sparks.