How terrible would it have been if I had come out with some watered-down version of who I am? People fell in love with the real me, and I still feel blessed that that was how the journey began.
— Alicia Keys
As a lyricist, you love to hear other great lyrics or other great concepts.
When I was younger, my mother and I, we'd have these crazy, crazy fights. Everyone would storm out mad, and the only way that I'd be able to express myself was to write her. We would write letters back and forth for days. When I'm writing, I feel uninterrupted. I write what I'm going through and how I see it.
I feel more like I'm a person who has so much to offer in different capacities that it would be a danger for me not to give myself a chance to spread my wings in all different directions.
The desire to play has always been in me. I remember my first experience at about four or five of really dying to sing and dying to play that came from no one telling me to do so.
The element of fire to me is very powerful because of what it symbolizes, how it symbolizes a strength. It symbolizes something that's unstoppable. You can't get through it, you know.
I know people who've gone to jail. It don't mean you stop loving them! They deservin' love just as much in there, and maybe they needin' it more.
When I was a kid, I'd practise Chopin on piano - and I love Chopin! He's my dawg! Then I'd go out on the stoop and blast the radio. I'm from New York, the concrete jungle. Hip-hop influenced me from day one.
I don't have a ton of friends, but the friends I have are great ones. I don't have huge family, but the family I have is a great one.
Music is funny. I shouldn't even ever talk about music, because you can have all the ideas in your head, and it never goes exactly the way that you think it's gonna go.
What breaks my heart is suffering of any kind. Too often, our world is divisive and cruel where it needs to be uniting and loving.
People don't expect me to be as funny as I am.
I'm the cofounder of Keep a Child Alive. We provide medicine for families affected by HIV and AIDS in places like Africa and India.
I don't think even when you find a person, you can be completely honest, ever. There's still pieces of you that you don't give away. I do believe you always need that place where it's just you, your thoughts, no one else's judgment or anything.
I think I grew up really fast; I grew up in this really fast-paced business, and I never understood what it meant to take a break or take time off or recover, and I paid for it.
I'd rather believe in my own choice and see it all go wrong than do something I'm not fully convinced of and later feel guilty about it.
I think you are who you are, and your kids will see who you are. So you'd better be a good person, because they are going to see it, and that's going to shape them. They are going to become you.
I just wanted to be who I was, which was like so many other girls I knew. We grew up in the city, had a hard edge and obstacles to overcome, but we were still young and beautiful. I didn't want to be all dressed up, all made up - I wanted to be myself, which hadn't been done before.
I find myself to be truly primal and passionate. Everything I do comes from a primal place.
I am able to hang with the hardest, the baddest, the worst, and I'm able to hang with the most proper and be at ease. I'm able to hang with any skin colour, any belief. I just fit in everywhere.
I definitely want to act, but I also want to score movies, and I have this idea to fuse classical music with other styles that would give it a different perception.
Failure isn't an option. I've erased the word 'fear' from my vocabulary, and I think when you erase fear, you can't fail.
My music comes from many, many, many places. My emotions, my feelings, my thoughts, and conversations I have with people I know who influence me.
My mixed-race background made me a broad person, able to relate to different cultures. But any woman of colour, even a mixed colour, is seen as black in America. So that's how I regard myself.
Most times, your blessings are also your curses. And for me, I have this ability to express myself so clearly with pen and paper, but when it comes to expressing myself verbally, I put up a big wall.
I love children and I love family and I love that interaction. Because I had a really close relationship with my mother, I understand that deep powerful love, and it's so beautiful. To be a mother to a child is the most brilliant gift; it's gorgeous.
From the beginning, I've had to juggle and weigh the silly things people say - and I've learnt that they're meaningless, and they're mostly inaccurate. So I don't worry about it, because there's nothin' for me to deal with.
When I'm on stage, my interaction with the audience is something that really makes me come alive. It's a feeling like no other. The energy of the crowd fuels something new inside.
I have this vintage Harley-Davidson motorcycle jacket. When I put it on, it has this supercool feeling to it.
I was worried that one day, 40 years from now, I would look back and wouldn't be able to remember the details of my life, so I've written them all down.
I grew up around the theatre. My mother is an actress. I would fall asleep on tons of theatre chairs. It's in my blood; it's in my spirit and my fabric of who I am.
I feel like the majority of the fear that I had or that we have we hold from other people. They're like people that we trust; they're their fears. All of a sudden we think that they're our fears.
I've learned that while I'd be a fool not to stay open to the advice and experiences of the smart, amazing people in my life, I also need to listen to what I have to say.
Things can be really empty in this world, and I don't just mean the music world. It can become a very meaningless place if you don't really understand: 'who am I? Why am I here? What am I doing?' To feel fulfilment and have a deeper level of understanding, personally, that is the most important thing.
Some of the greatest artists did their best work when they got political.
To be able to help a 13-year-old kid from the Bronx follow her dreams just by letting her know she's not forgotten in this crazy world - that's why I got involved with Frum Tha Ground Up.
My parents weren't married. It wasn't like my dad up and left. I maintained a steady relationship with my grandparents. My dad's mother is my nana, and I'm closer to her than almost anybody in this world.
I grew up in the middle of everything. I walked the streets alone, I rode the trains alone, I came home at three in the morning alone; that was what I did.
I don't dream - only if I'm uncomfortable or I'm going through something.
Maturity and experience are part of my liberation.
When I had nothing else, I had my mother and the piano. And you know what? They were all I needed.
I have solid decent people around me, and I believe that is all it is, because you will get destroyed if you have people bringing you down.
There's too much darkness in the world. Everywhere you turn, someone is tryin' to tear someone down in some way; everywhere you go, there's a feeling of inadequacy, or a feeling that you're not good enough. I want to bring a certain light to the world.
We have the potential to help people out of poverty, out of disease, out of slavery and out of conflict. Too often, we turn the other way because we think there's nothing we can do.
I'm inspired by artists and musicians. There are so many wonderful and talented people in the world. I love discovering new music, new writers, or new art.
I want to continue to produce film, television, and theater, and to make the most amazing music that I've made in my life.
I've always been very private, maybe because I discovered my mother, who is a wonderful lady, is very emotional.
I grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood.
It's when we become afraid of everything and worried about everything that you are never going to reach your highest potential.
I've always valued the input of the people I love. So in the past, whenever I'd make a decision - what to wear to an event, whether to pursue a job opportunity - I'd consult those closest to me, like my mother, husband, or manager.
