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Kelis Recounts The Changes She And Her Family Made On Their Health Journey Before And After Husband’s Death
Singer and entrepreneur Kelis' formula for living a healthy and fulfilling life is boiled down to two simple rules: watching what one consumes regularly and reducing stress.
The 43-year-old recently dropped some gems for her followers as she opened up about what influenced her decision to live on a farm with her family, her healthy eating habits, and how her late husband, Mike Mora, inspired her wellness journey.
Mike, who passed away from stage four stomach cancer on March 14, 2022, was married to Kelis for about eight years. The couple share two children, a son Sheperd Mora, and a daughter Galilee Mora. Kelis also has another son, Knight Jones, who she shares with rapper Nas. On the first anniversary of Mike's passing, Kelis mentioned that her journey living on a farm and growing her own food began long before he was diagnosed with cancer.
Kelis On Living On A Farm And Her Husband Mike's Cancer Diagnosis
In an Instagram video, the "Milkshake" vocalist revealed that the particular moment she realized the importance of eating well and having a healthy lifestyle began when she became pregnant with her daughter Galilee in 2019.
"So lately, lots of people have been asking me how did I get started with my wellness and my farming and kind of all that stuff," Kelis said while addressing her fans. "For me, like really everything started years and years and years ago. Just wanting to eat well, I guess. When I got pregnant, really, that's when I really started to care and think about it."
Kelis shared that as soon as she started incorporating healthy meals and other practices in their lives, Mike was tragically diagnosed with cancer in 2020. "Then my husband Mike got sick. This was a couple of years ago. It was right after we had our youngest, Galilee, and he was diagnosed with stage four stomach cancer... It was just such a shock," she explained.
The mother of three went on to describe how "overwhelming" the entire experience was with Mike going through rounds of chemotherapy and her trying to balance the household.
"We were already eating well and really focused on what we put in our bodies," Kelis stated. "After he [Mike] did eight rounds of chemo which was beyond intense, there were things that we were doing that we saw, like how we're going to get through this period of time? How are we going to get through chemo? I can't even imagine how he was really feeling, but for me, just being a caretaker, being here, being a mom, and being a wife, and all these things just felt so overwhelming."
Further in the conversation, Kelis disclosed that her knowledge of mushrooms and their effectiveness in one's diet expanded while researching methods to help Mike's battle with cancer. During the research process, the pair found various solutions for the disease, which included hyperbaric chambers and ozone therapy.
The Food and Drug Administration reports that hyperbaric oxygen therapy uses hyperbaric chambers, often considered a healthier alternative, to help the individual's "lung collect more oxygen" so that it can combat infected cells.
According to Medical News Today, the purpose of ozone therapy for individuals with cancer is to "increase oxygen levels to fight cancer cells," and it could help reduce the adverse effects of chemotherapy. The site states there is insufficient research to showcase its effectiveness.
Still, Kelis added that while researching, they found out that medical professionals in other countries like Russia, Japan, and Cuba would often group chemotherapy with ozone therapy to help their patients with cancer, something she described as a "game-changing" experience for Mike. But sadly, Mike's cancer would come back and spread.
Shortly after, Kelis and Mike tried finding other alternatives. In that process of continued research, they met the man that created the hyperbaric chamber, who ultimately suggested that they make a particular mushroom recipe and take it regularly.
"So we ended up meeting with this beautiful, brilliant man who actually invented the hyperbaric chamber," she said. "He was just like, 'hey, this is what you need to do.' He gave us a recipe, and it was a list of these mushrooms to start taking. I was like, 'oh, I do this, and I already take this.' He was doing these really potent B12 shots and all this stuff, and he was like, 'No, it's this recipe specifically.' So, what I started doing was, I really started making the recipe myself."
Kelis On Diet And Stress
Near the end of the clip, Kelis emphasized why it is essential to have a good diet. The "Bossy" songstress pointed out that when people go to the hospital to figure out what is going on with their health, they forget that it all starts with what they consume.
"We've gotten so far away from it and just so far removed that we don't know who to trust anymore. We don't know where to go. We go to doctors for things that don't make any sense when really it's like it's our food. It's how we're eating. It's how we're living and breathing and putting our feet in the soil. So I started making brain food for that. Unfortunately, it was late for Mike, but I give it to my kids. I give it to myself." she said.
Another thing Kelis suggested that people need to look out for is stress. In addition to that revelation, the "Caught Out There" singer shared that was the sole reason she and her family moved out to a farm so that they could escape the "angst" that came along with living in a city.
"Just to add that, just a tidbit, stress is--every doctor we saw, every specialist, every nutritionist, every human being we found that had any expertise in this whatsoever was like, 'stress kills,'" Kelis expressed. "I moved to the farm, and we wanted to separate ourselves from all the silly things that had us stressed out and worried and angst and all these things that didn't really matter."
Kelis would wrap it up by saying that these life lessons she's learned within these past few years are the factors as to why she is very vocal about health and supporting farmers, mainly Black farmers because they care about others' well-being.
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This Black Woman-Owned Creative Agency Shows Us The Art Of Rebranding
Rebranding is an intricate process and very important to the success of businesses that want to change. However, before a business owner makes this decision, they should determine whether it's a rebrand or an evolution.
That's where people like Lola Adewuya come in. Lola is the founder and CEO of The Brand Doula, a brand development studio with a multidisciplinary approach to branding, social media, marketing, and design.
While an evolution is a natural progression that happens as businesses grow, a rebrand is a total change. Lola tells xoNecole, "A total rebrand is necessary when a business’s current reputation/what it’s known for is at odds with the business’s vision or direction.
"For example, if you’ve fundamentally changed what your product is and does, it’s likely that your brand is out of alignment with the business. Or, if you find your company is developing a reputation that doesn’t serve it, it might be time to pump the brakes and figure out what needs to change.
She continues, "Sometimes you’ll see companies (especially startups) announce a name change that comes with updated messaging, visuals, etc. That usually means their vision has changed or expanded, and their previous branding was too narrow/couldn’t encompass everything they planned to do."
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The Brand Doula was born in 2019, and its focus is on putting "the experiences, goals, and needs of women of color founders first," as well as brands with "culture-shifting missions."
According to Lola, culture-shifting is "the act of influencing dominant behavior, beliefs, or experiences in a community or group (ideally, for the better)."
"At The Brand Doula, we work with companies and leaders that set out to challenge the status quo in their industries and communities. They’re here to make an impact that sends ripples across the market," she says.
"We help the problem solvers of the world — the ones who aren't satisfied with 'this is how it's always been' and instead ask 'how could this be better?' Our clients build for impact, reimagining tools, systems, and ways of living to move cultures forward."
The Brand Doula has worked with many brands, including Too Collective, to assist with their collaboration with Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty and Balanced Black Girl for a "refresh," aka rebrand. For businesses looking to rebrand, Lola shares four essential steps.
1. Do an audit of your current brand experience — what’s still relevant and what needs to change? Reflect on why you’re doing the rebrand in the first place and what success would look like after relaunching.
2. Tackle the overall strategy first — before you start redesigning logos and websites, align on a new vision for your brand. How do you want your company to be positioned moving forward? Has your audience changed at all? Will your company have a fresh personality and voice?
3. Bring your audience along the journey — there’s no need to move in secret. Inviting your current audience into the journey can actually help them feel more connected to and invested in your story, enough to stick around as changes are being made.
4. Keep business moving — one of my biggest pet peeves is when companies take down their websites as soon as they have the idea to rebrand, then have a Coming Soon page up for months! You lose a lot of momentum and interest by doing that. If you’re still in business and generating income, continue to operate while you work on your rebrand behind the scenes. You don’t want to cut existing customers off out of the blue, and you also don’t want so much downtime that folks forget your business exists or start looking for other solutions.
While determining whether the rebrand was successful may take a few months, Lola says a clear sign that it is unsuccessful is negative feedback from your target audience. "Customers are typically more vocal about what they don’t like more than what they do like," she says.
But some good signs to look out for are improvements in engagement with your marketing, positive reviews, press and increase in retention, and overall feeling aligned with the new branding.
For more information about Lola and The Brand Doula, visit her website, thebranddoula.com.
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Megan Thee Stallion On Artistic Freedom, Nicki Minaj & No Longer Looking For Black Men To Protect Her
With the chart success of her first album as an independent artist and her third album Megan, a triumphant headlining tour debut with Hot Girl Summer, a bevy of lucrative brand partnerships, and a tequila brand called Chicas Divertidas underway, Megan Thee Stallion is proving she's the moment. Not only that, but sis gets money. Plus, she's a star.
Megan Thee Stallion is hosting the forthcoming 2024 MTV Video Music Awards for the first time and will be acting as a host, a performer, and possibly an award recipient as the Houston Hottie is nominated for seven awards in various categories. It all goes down on September 11. But preceding those festivities, the "Hiss" rapper has managed to stun in other ways, one of them is gracing the cover of Billboard's September issue.
Read on for some noteworthy gems from her cover story.
On being her own boss as an independent artist:
"Being independent is hard. When you got a label that does everything for you, all you got to do is wake up and be the celebrity. That’s a very easy life. I have to do s–t other people aren’t doing. I do work as my own label. I do fund a lot of my own things. There’s a lot of things I’m still learning as I go. The s–t is not just handed to me in my lap — I really got to go figure out, 'Okay, now I’m doing it by myself.'
"Not that I’m doing it only by myself, but I’m in a position to be my own boss, so I got to figure out how to be the boss and how to be the employee. It’s tough, but I like figuring it out. I like doing things on my own. I like working. I’m not going to stop. The more I know, the better I’ll get."
On what owning her masters means to her:
"I’ve been fighting for my freedom my whole rap career. I just couldn’t take no for an answer. I don’t ever want to be in a situation where somebody got their foot on my neck ever again. You got to do things to make yourself be your own boss."
On that seemingly one-sided beef with Nicki Minaj:
"I still to this day don’t know what the problem is. I don’t even know what could be reconciled because I, to this day, don’t know what the problem is."
On no longer needing others to feel safe and happy:
"At this point in life, I really don’t care. Maybe if you would’ve asked me this last year or two years ago, I would’ve wished I had more Black people in general in my corner. It would’ve felt nice to be protected by some Black men in this instance, but the more I wasn’t getting it, the more and more I realized I wasn’t going to get it. Who should feel safe and important at the end of the day is me, and I was going to have to make myself feel that way. I wasn’t going to find it in people I don’t know at all. Now I don’t care. As long as I make myself feel happy, then that’s what matters to me."
"Who should feel safe and important at the end of the day is me, and I was going to have to make myself feel that way. I wasn’t going to find it in people I don’t know at all. Now I don’t care. As long as I make myself feel happy, then that’s what matters to me."
On the difference between Megan and Megan Thee Stallion:
"I feel like Megan and Megan Thee Stallion are the same person. When I’m Megan Thee Stallion, I’m having to wear armor. I definitely got to go on stage and get in that mode, but I’m still the same person. Just when I’m not in public, I can really decompress and slouch, and I could watch anime all I want. I can play with my puppies, I can talk on the phone with my cousin, I could be with my best friends in peace. I don’t have to worry about being too strong. I could just be me."
Read the full cover story on Billboard.com.
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