Back in May of this year, the 15-time Grammy Award-Winning singer, songwriter, producer, and New York Times best-selling author Alicia Keys spoke with InStyle Magazine on the issues of today.
More Myself: A Journey hit bookshelves and anywhere books are sold on March 31st, of this year. The autobiography talks of her childhood, career, family and husband. Since the interview was held in May, the world was just awakening to the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed African American man who was shot by white residents in Brunswick, GA.
On Ahmaud Arbery:
On the day we speak, our phone notifications are filled with a typically harrowing array of news, including persistent coronavirus outbreaks and updates on the Georgia murder case of Ahmaud Arbery. “You know, we do a really good job of judging each other and assuming who people are when we don’t even know them,” Keys says. “To me, the most important thing we can do right now is take a second to see and appreciate each other as we are.”
On COVID-19:
Keys’s latest album, ALICIA, and its tour have been postponed because of COVID-19, but she’s focusing on the potential upsides of the crisis. Eventually, she thinks slash hopes, we’ll see the value of “stripping away all the unnecessary things and really recognizing how much we need each other.”
On the theme of female empowerment in her music:
When I ask her if some of her rousing girl-power songs (e.g., “A Woman’s Worth,” “Girl on Fire”) were written in part to convince herself of her own messaging, Keys laughs and says, “All of them! Truly. There hasn’t been one that I wrote because I actually believed it at the time. I needed to pull myself out of a rut or a place of confusion.”
Check out the full interview here.
