Kelis' 2006 hit "Bossy" was an oddly insecure piece of metatextual boasting, the R&B star making sure to remind us exactly who she is and what she's done. "I brought all the boys to the yard"-- yeah Kelis, we remember, that song was absolutely inescapable just two years previous. "I'm the one that's tattooed on his arm"-- don't worry, Nas enjoys being photographed in wifebeaters far too often for us to easily forget the image of you rendered topless in ink.

Yet if anyone should feel paranoid about their status in the U.S. pop landscape, it's Kelis. Even with the ubiquity of "Milkshake", Kelis' career in her home country has been frustratingly checkered, exemplified by the fact that her second album, 2001's Wanderland, wasn't even released at home. Little surprise then that her newly released compendium, The Hits, isn't slated to hit shelves here either. While the Brits seem to have always gotten Kelis, America has never quite known what to do with her. I guess we tend to like our R&B singers more earnest and workmanlike than the mercurial former Neptunes protégé-- the duo produced her first two records (1999's Kaleidoscope and Wanderland), while contributing heavily to 2003's Tasty. Of course, as the messy, mishmashed The Hits attests, Kelis herself rarely seems certain of her persona either. Perhaps the affirmations of "Bossy" are just reminders to help herself stay on terra firma.

The Hits conspicuously kicks off with Kelis' two most indelible songs, the angrily empowered nu-soul shouter "Caught Out There" and "Milkshake", but slamming these two wildly divergent tracks against each other does us no favors in helping to figure Kelis out. They're followed by the infamous "Got Your Money", the Ol' Dirty Bastard hit for which Kelis merely provided the hook. You'd think the decision to include this song, as well as Kelis' abbreviated turn on N.E.R.D's "Truth or Dare" would've given her label pause about putting out a best-of comp at all, until you remember her last record, 2006's Kelis Was Here, performed poorly even in her most enthused European marketplaces. Suddenly, The Hits looks like an exercise in salvaging a few bucks from a money pit.

That said, there's plenty of essential material here that's been mostly overlooked over the course of Kelis' spotty-selling career: The winsome, skipping "Get Along With You" from her debut record and the arcade-effects thumper "Young Fresh N' New" from Wanderland are two particularly exemplary Neptunes-produced examples. Of course, Kelis is no mere vessel, and she expertly provides sass on "Trick Me," lust on "In Public", and false modesty on "Lil' Star". Still, there's plenty of space between vessel and visionary, and this compilation does a worse job of focusing Kelis' artistic aims than either of her first two albums. The result is half-exhilirating, half-maddening, and comes across as oddly middle of the road.