Keli She wears many hats: musician, chef, farmer and businesswoman, but her favorite role is that of devoted mother to her three children.

The singer, best known for her 2003 hit “Beaten”, became a mother for the first time in 2009 when she welcomed her son Knight, whom she shares with the rapper. nas. She later had another son, Shepherd, and a daughter, Galilea, with her late husband. mike morawho died of stomach cancer in 2022.

Kelis and her family moved to a farm in Temecula, California, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, where they grow all their own food and have more than 30 animals. In a June 2021 interview with Harper’s BazaarThe mother of three shared what she hopes her children take away from this experience. “Being able to say, ‘I belong here. I own this. It’s mine,’” he told the outlet. “I want them to properly understand what wealth is.”

Kelis is private when it comes to her children and has never shown their faces on social media. However, she shares glimpses of her life on the farm. As a trained chef (she studied at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu), Kelis also frequently posts about the food she prepares for Knight, Shepherd, and Galilee.

In July 2022 Instagram videoShe offered her followers tips for getting kids to eat healthily, including “presenting things in a way that makes sense to them.” Regarding the food his own children eat, he noted in the title of the publication: “There are no children’s menus in my house, family. If you want your children to eat well, you have to start doing it early. This is how it’s done .”

While speaking at the 2015 Los Angeles Women’s Expo, Kelis reflected on how becoming a mother changed her. “(Motherhood) enhances you,” she said, by Essence. “I don’t know if it really changes you. I think it just enhances who you already are. It makes the things you do make sense. You are more moving and more focused.”

Read on to learn everything there is to know about Kelis’ three children.

Gentleman

The R&B singer welcomed her first child, Knight, in July 2009. His father is rapper Nas, whom Kelis was in the process of divorcing at the time of Knight’s birth. Kelis and Nas met at the MTV Music Video Awards in 2002 and married in 2005. Kelis announced her pregnancy in February 2009 and filed for divorce in April, just two months before Knight was born.

As a child, Knight was passionate about drawing and superheroes. Kelis frequently shared photos of her artwork on Instagram and even had her own account dedicated to her drawings, called @KnightandShining. The account, inactive since late 2019, has a bio that reads: “I am a 10-year-old artist and visionary .”

In September of that same year, Kelis shared a drawing by Knight of a superhero named “Astroid”. In the caption, the proud mother marveled at her son’s creativity and imagination. “Defender of the galaxy @knightandshining I love your imagination and determination to make every superhero black and with an afro or a flat top lol the best! she wrote.

More recently, the teenager helped his mother on the farm, along with his little brother. “Rise and shine, kids love collecting eggs on the farm in the morning,” Kelis captioned a post. photo from October 2020 of Knight and Shepherd holding a basket of freshly collected eggs.

Knight also lends his mother a hand in the kitchen. In April 2022, Kelis published a video of her and her eldest son preparing a Moroccan-style lamb dish, noting in the caption that Knight, who was wearing a Spider-Man mask to hide his face, wanted to help. “If it were live, it would be paying for a very expensive massage,” Knight joked during the video as Kelis massaged the lamb with a marinade.

The “Trick Me” singer also creates and sells her own natural skin care products and is passing on the importance of self-care to her children. In May 2022, Kelis posted a video on Instagram that showed her and Knight doing their skincare routines together. “Teach my Knight how to take care of his skin,” she wrote in the caption. “In tweens and teens, their breakouts are just part of growing up. But it is important to start having good habits now.”

Pastor

Kelis welcomed her second son, Shepherd, in November 2015, with her husband Mike Mora, whom she had married the previous year.

The singer gave her fans a rare glimpse into Shepherd’s bond with her older brother on National Siblings Day in 2019. “Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero! ,” he captioned a shepherd and knight photo working together on the farm.

Shepherd is always ready to help his mother in the garden and she has shared photos of his efforts on Instagram in the past. “Shep worked hard with me in the garden this morning and we had a lot of success…my boy is growing so much! Now it’s time for a fresh salad,” Kelis captioned. photo 2021 of Shepherd holding a large bowl of cherry tomatoes.

For Shepherd’s sixth birthday, Kelis set up a dig site on the farm, as she noted on Instagram. video that he and Knight want to be paleontologists or archaeologists when they grow up. In the caption, the mother of three wrote a touching message about motherhood.

“I love being a mother, I always knew I wanted to have little ones, but I wasn’t the type of woman to regret it,” she wrote. “Now I look at my giant who is 12 years old and Shep who just turned 6 years old and little Miss Muffet who is now 1 year old and I think how I didn’t do this before… There is nothing like the joy a mom feels when making May this happen for your little ones. It’s for them but it’s also for us. I just love it.”

Galilee

Kelis and Mora welcomed their second child together, a daughter named Galilee, in September 2020. The singer shared the news on Instagram on September 11 on a video where she revealed: “Hey, I’ve been a little missing, very missing, but for a very good reason: I just had my baby!” before noting that her birth was “intense.”

“She is the sweetest little thing,” Kelis wrote alongside a photo posted the day after the newborn holding his thumb.

A few months later, the singer reflected on having her first daughter. “It’s funny, I’ve been a mother of a boy for so long and I was completely content with superheroes, guns and war games,” she captioned one photo of his hands and those of Galilee. “I would have loved to have had another baby. But now that she is her, I looked at her little hand on mine and realized that I had been preparing for her my whole life.”

She continued: “Having a girl is somehow totally different. And don’t get me wrong, we’ll still have superheroes, guns, and war games with Baby G too. But we will do it wearing diamonds, rubies and pearls!!!!!!!”

Kelis was 41 when she welcomed Galilee and opened up about her postpartum experience during her interview with Harper’s Bazaar. “After having the baby, I’m 41 years old. It wasn’t the easiest thing,” she told the outlet. “It wasn’t like when I gave birth to my oldest son when I was 29 years old. Seeing how I was going to recover, the first thing I started doing was food and I was able to get back to normal. a place where I felt physically strong again.”

Just 17 days after the birth of Galilee, Mora was diagnosed with stage 4 stomach cancer. the photographer died two years later on March 15, 2022, at age 37.

During an exclusive interview with PEOPLE In September 2022, Kelis revealed that her children “were always super aware” of Mora’s diagnosis and were able to “prepare, love and say goodbye.”

The singer added: “We were able to put in the time we needed, as much as we were given, the best way we could.”