Alicia Keys

00:00:08 Speaker 1: Pushkin. Alicia Keys started her career as a soulful, piano playing singer songwriter a lot like a young Carol King, But in the twenty years since, we've seen her grow into one of the world's biggest pop stars, and, like at the Kobe Memorial recently, someone the country turns to when we need a unifying voice. Reading Alicia's newly released memoir More Myself, you understand right away how someone's so young carries so much wisdom. Raised by a loving single mother in the middle of New York City in the eighties and nineties, she was bound or grew up smart and grew up fast, or maybe not make it at all. Alicia spoke with Malcolm Gladwell by Zoom recently about her childhood navigating the dangerous city, about writing her book and how it informed her new music, and shared some astonishing stories about some of the amazing people she's crossed paths with over her career. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Malcolm Gladwell with Alicia Keys. You wrote this book at the same time that you were doing your latest album, you know, I mean, I started to write the book before the latest album, for sure, But they definitely have synergies they and I feel that their companion pieces they belonged together. Was it strange to work on a book at the same time as music or it was the same process for you? Well, no, it's not the same process at all. It's totally foreign, completely brand new, much much more in depth and depth. You know. Obviously the book writing process and the length of time that it takes it was much longer and much more patients required to really follow through with everything and find the through lines and really be clear about the intention and the meaning and that you know that it makes sense the whole way through it, that it really brings you there. But emotionally, I think it was similar in the sense of, you know, just I think with music you also do have to find the truth in what you're trying to convey, and you're just doing it in a much more concise way, which can also be harder because you don't have the length to deeply explain what you're truly trying to say. So and in those ways, they both have their challenges. But obviously music is more like a second skin for me than book writing, So in that way, it was totally different. But I think what was good about both recording the music and writing this book at similar times is that I was asking myself too similar questions. And the question that I was asking myself and I was understanding more than ever before, was this question about identity and who actually am I? And who who of who I am? Who is who I've been told to be? And who is who I'm actually And that became a theme that was both I was deeply able to search through the book writing process from looking you know, from my very beginning stages to now, and then I was also able to search from this music sonic lyrical process. So I think it was it was really cool for that because although it was the same question, it was two different expressions of the question. So that made it cool. Will you tell a story about how Swiss came to you and says how how can we never talk about big Italian? Which I so an inspiration. I love that because we always have to pick a side, right, you know. I have to say that I've always been fortunate because as I grew up in New York City, you know, the heart of the city right there, melting pot for real, there was never a moment that I wasn't seeing people of all kinds of descents and all kinds of beliefs and religions and places and styles and energies. And I think that really made a difference for me. I didn't feel like I had to pick a side, because I think I think if I grew up in a smaller town or I don't know, I think it was just circumstance, and you know, just how my particular childhood was. I never felt like that. I definitely felt I understood there were different sides, but I didn't feel like I had to pick one, you know. And but I also didn't realize think what his question when he asked, when he said that it was, I was very defensive. Were you talking about like everybody knows that? And the more people that I started to encounter that actually didn't know that started to prove him right. And and I guess so in regards to picking sides, maybe we I picked a side in a way. I didn't think I was picking a side. I didn't feel like I needed to pick a side. I didn't realize I was picking a side. But I think in some ways perhaps I did. So that was what was really interesting about it. It just kind of he put myself. He threw me in front of the mirror, and I was like, oh, maybe. So it's so good about people who you who love you and who you love like how they can provoke you to think about things that you would never there wouldn't have been a reason to think about when he asked you that we said that to you, was that the beginning of the process of the new album? Were you already immersed in it when we said that too, I was already writing it. I think that it really gave it a perspective that I did not have prior, and I started to really think about it. Turned it gave me the questioning of myself to not only think about race, or to think about religion, or to think about color, but to go even deeper and think about emotions. Because for me, that's my biggest trouble I find, or my biggest challenge, or my biggest lesson or my biggest opportunity, or whatever you want to call it, is I find that I it's been very difficult for me to access my emotions, and so I finally come to a place where I can acknowledge the myriad of emotions that make us all up who we are. And you know, because the world is so structured, and you know, we kind of have been so taught to be in control of our everything, you know that we don't think we're not encouraged to kind of see these darker or deeper or bluer or scarier or more vulnerable parts that are inside of us, that are really a healthy part of why you are who you are. But if you don't know that side, how can you really know yourself? And so that's that's what it started to send me down that rugget hole and away I went. I want to go back to what it meant to grow up in the eighties and nineties in New York. Um, before I get there, I want to touch on this question of racial identity again, because you make that comment about your mom that she's the blackest white woman you've ever known. So it's almost as if, like, so, you have a white mother and a black father, but you have a kind of black white mother and a black father. Is that fair? That's what you're saying, right, Yeah, I mean she totally is. I mean, if you when you meet my mother or when you ever spend time at my mother, you can definitely, you know, she she has a certain spirit and she has a certain energy that that definitely, you know, anybody would say she is one of the blackest white people that you have you have ever met um, And she's definitely, you know, I think We've always had such a really diverse, interesting group of aunties and friends and and you know, her colleagues and friends and my friends and and sister friends and all the people that you know, I've been able to attract and just have been a part of my life that have really created such a, like I said, a really robust, dynamic experience in regards to what people look like, what people believe, feel, dance like, eat, you know, live the whole thing. And so it definitely painted a colorful picture for me, and I really appreciate that. What would your mom say if if your mom was on this call and I said to her, your daughter describes you as the blackest white woman, what would she say? I think She's like, yeah, I think she right. I think that. So what's here? They're painted picture of growing up with your mom and Behattan Plaza. Prist of all, what your mom is very is really into music, the world you grew up with his intensity musical. What's she playing? You're you're seven years old? What's your mom playing? Um? I mean I can remember correctly. She's playing Bobby Caldwell, she's playing John Coltrane, she's playing La Fitzgerald. She's playing Marvin Gaye, she's playing roberta Flat, She's playing Areta Franklin, she's playing Nina Simone, she's playing you know, all these really epic Stevie Wonder, She's playing all the greatest of the greats are coming through those speakers and those and those those record players, because that's what it was, a record player, and she had all the albums on all the shelves, and it was just the soundtrack was so beautiful. Man. Yeah. Yeah, And you're saying the book that you from the age of four you knew you were you were going to be a singer. I mean, but at the age of four us when I fell in love. I was bitten and smitten. I think that that's when I really fell in love with the possibility. Because my my little sweet teacher at the time, as Hazel, who was kind of the music teacher at my kindergarten. She always so passionate and so lively, and she always wanted to expose us to different sounds and places and performances, and so our little selves were always going somewhere and singing some little songs somewhere. But she also did these plays, and those plays were the first opportunity that I had with kind of trying out to sing in front of people. And it was so scary and I was so so terrified, which you know, it's so terrifying to sing in front of people you know, much less in front of people you don't know as much easier, but in front of people you know, it's super terrifying. But I tried and I sang. We were doing the Wizard of Oz and I sang Somewhere of the Rainbow. And I had to learn it, and I had to learn all the words, and I had to learn the melodies and sing it. And when I did, I felt something. And that was the moment that I just I didn't feel scared, I felt good. And that was the moment that filled me up in that way and started that journey. So I didn't exactly know it's gonna be a singer at that second, I don't think, but I did know that I felt something that I wanted to feel again. It found your world at that moment. Yeah, there's a couple of moments that I wish you'd did more of it. When you start talking about your relationship to to to pianos and to a to the piano. If you're keep talking about that, I thought that was So is there something can you remember the first time as a child that you understood what a piano was and what it could do and what you felt at that moment? Well, I feel like pianos have always been around me. My grandmother on my mother's side always played piano. She was actually, you know, a singer and a writer herself. And then you know, I think got married quite early, so my grandfather, you know, call it right out of college nineteen plenty, whatever that is, and then right away they started having children, ended up having nine children altogether. And let me tell you, I have two and I'm trying to figure out how to get some space. So I don't know how she would have nine and like be able to do anything besides everything that was needed for that, you know. So I think at that point, you know, her dream was deferred. And so but ever since a little girl going to visit my family there there was always a piano there. There was always a piano at my other grandmother's house too. My father's mother, my Nanna's house, she always had a piano, and I think her kids at one time took piano and didn't really stick with it, but it always was in the house. So there was always a piano fortunately somewhere. So I think from a very young age, I definitely knew exactly what it was. I knew what it was meant to do, and I was very attracted to it from a very early age. I would, you know, in New York, I would pass by the Segway shop and they all those pianos in the way, and I was fascinated. I was. I was almost just drawn like a like a magnetic force towards it, and I would stick my nose to the window and just look at it. I would want to play it. I would want to hear them. They look so beautiful, they're like art. And so I was very very enamored with it. And and then you know, but we never had a piano because that's like, first of all, our apartment was tiny, and you can't fit something like that into our place. And and it wasn't even really a consideration or a thought until the opportunity arose that we actually were given a piano, and that was another thing that changed everything. So I once that happened and we actually had the opportunity for me to play one consistently, that's when I started asking if there was a way I could learn, and and it felt like in that way, I was just drawn to it. I can't explain it except anything like that. It wasn't someone wasn't always necessarily playing around me and said, hey, Lee should up on my lap and learn. The wasn't necessarily that where I didn't have a big like church experience where a lot of people learn in church and kind of jump in and start to learn there and that's how they played. That wasn't my experience either. But it just so happened that this fascination and the love and the draw and the power was always there. And then when it finally revealed itself, it was like again that same family where it's like it found me, how old were you when your family got that piano? And now I started playing and I started to take lessons at seven, So I was right. I was right about that age. Yeah, and it was just beat up. Oh yeah, it was a you know, a hand me down piano, which was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life. I couldn't have been more excited or more grateful. It was this kind of beat up brown wooden, upright old player piano. So it had the doors in the front that was slide open where the twenties or the thirties, and whatever saloon it was in or wherever it came from, the playing paper would have been inside of it. And it was in the corner and played for all the people in there, and they probably were dancing to it, and a lot of times it probably wasn't played that often from someone's fingers, or maybe it was, who knows. But it found its way to my living room and became the divider between my little parts of the living room that was my little bedroom and the actual part that me and my mother used to sit in and watch TV. And it was the wall and there was where please tell me you still have that piano, believe it or not, I don't. I know, I didn't, you know. Before anything started to take off or happened, I was able to get another piano I'm trying to think of when I'm actually trying to think of when the cross happens. I think I got there's a piano that was a part of the first deal I had, and it was a far superior piano in my little brown one, and I would and at that time, I didn't know what success was, and I didn't know about ever make it, and I had no idea. I was just like, WHOA, this is a beautiful piano. And I, in my spirit and my mother we said, well, who should we give the other piano too, so that someone else can learn and someone else can have a beautiful experience. And so that was all we've been thinking that. We weren't thinking, I, oh, we better hold this because this would literally be like the most museum worthy piano ever. We never we never thought about it. Somewhere out there, someone's got that piano, I think, and if they knew it was yours, you know, it's with a million dollars. When we come back more from Alicia Keys. We're back with more from Alicia Keys. Tell me about Manhattan Plaza. I was, I you know, I've been in New York for twenty years. I walked by Manhattan Plaza a million times. I had no idea. First of all, no idea took that's where. But I had no idea that it was this kind of world under itself of all of these creative types from Broadway. And so just describe for its Manhattan Plaza for those who don't know New York. So Manhattan Plaza is like a once in a lifetime creation. Basically it was built to support artists and creatives in that area because it's on forty second Street between Ninth and tenth, and it's two twin towers and one is on Tenth Avenue, one is on Ninth Avenue. And it was an experiment that the city did at a certain point to try to create an affordable living space for people who were creatives. Obviously, this New York City is all about creative people and that industry, in the entertainment industry. And so what they did was they created a system that you would pay only a portion of what you made that month. So you know, as we know, artists have very fluctuating incomes. It's not always uh, you know, you don't get a check every week. You know, you don't have a retirement plan. Um, it's very very unstable, and sometimes you're working a lot, sometimes you're working not at all. And so depending on whatever was happening for you that month, you would pay a portion of what you made. And I remember my mother told me that her her rent was about seventy five dollars, So that was you know, at that beginning time. And and and so what they created was a really special place that also had had like a playground for kids. So in between the buildings there were these special things. And so in a lot of ways you could live in that building and kind of it was its own world, unto itself, and everybody who was in that building knew each other, and all the kids kind of played together, and you know, they're sometimes you know, you even me discovering who lived in that building, I'm like, wow, Terence Howard, Larry David Sami Pel Jackson. You didn't see him back in the day. I don't recall seeing Sam Jackson, but I would have remembered if you had. I think I would, But I could have been so young that you know, it just doesn't dawn on you like that, you know, But I feel like I would have known if I if I saw him. But you know, he was he was also in that building, you know for a time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. It's like it's not only in New York kind of thing. There's don't exist anywhere else. But seriously, seriously, but it's plumped in the middle of Times Square in the eighties and nineties and Times Square in the eighties and nineties. You know, is that the world's most pleasant place? Were you aware of that fact that it was sort of the world outside Manhattan Plaza was a little scary or just did you just not did that not register to you when you were a kid. I knew very clearly if you you know, to go to school in order to come back from school, in order to you know, if there was any activity that I was doing, because my mother was big on that. You know, I'm my mother's a single mother in a real mean city with a daughter, and so she was definitely focused on making sure that I had places to go in places to be, because she knew if I didn't, then I would I would find places to go in places to be. So every time I walked out on the street. Even one of my earliest recollections early in the book that I Love a Lot is the first time that I asked her, I asked her who were the women on the streets who in the winter barely had any clothes on? And she, you know, probably struggled trying to answer that question for whatever I was six year old or whatever that was. So, you know, a lot of that, a lot of that energy of Hell's Kitchen, which literally was as it sounds. That name was perfect for how it looked and how it sounded and how it was. And so I was very familiar with the life outside of that, which was full of a lot of a lot of pimps, a lot of prostitutes, a lot of x orated stores and theaters, um, a lot of heroin addicts, drug addicts. UM. It was definitely full of the New York scene. So so I was very aware of what that was, and I think it actually informed my um a lot of my character. UM and you and I noticed as I reflect back, that I've always been very you know, my exterior has always had to be well in place, and that is a lot because of you know, those streets that I grew up on. Yeah, you sound like you you had a pretty wild am I right, I was reading between the lines in your book I was like, how wild was Alicia when she was in when she was a teenager. What I wanted was your mom. I wanted you to I wanted your mom the way in and say, tell me the real story, what was going on when you're fifteen years old? I definitely, I was definitely. I just knew. I knew it all like all fifteen year olds to I just I knew I was grown too, because I had to be very independent from a very very young age. You know, my mother needed me to be able to get around the city. She needed me to be able to get to where I was going get to school. If I had a piano class or a dance class, I needed to get there. I need to get back home, you know. And so I was definitely always on the streets and I was always able to kind of meet up with my friends or go where I wanted to go. In essence, she was definitely on me, for sure, and she was wild. So you did not want to upset that woman. To this day, you don't want to upset that woman. It's really just so much more than it's necessary that you just like, let's just let's just get it right, please. So she and she you know, hey, I'm not even mad at her. She had to do she had to be. And I know when I have to go in on my kids like that too, because they have to understand how serious it is that they would never know in their young mind what I know. I understand why she had to, you know, I do. She had to make a point and I had to listen. And she didn't have a dad to send down and say. At least she put the bass voice on. It wasn't like that, you know what I mean. So I understand. But but she so I was definitely, I just I think I was. I was very smart. I really I knew how to navigate. I also had a lot of older friends, so I felt a lot older than I was. I asked it, a lot older than I was. I was probably pretty fast in regards to my experiences and things like that. So I just had a sense of stuff that most people of my age never did. And I just I couldn't go back, like I didn't know how to go back. I was already I was already so well responsible and kind of crazy and loud mouth, and you know, thought I was extraly tough and all the stuff that you think as a kid, because you know, it's irrelevant though, because you had your whole timeline as an artist is sped up. So what happened to you at nineteen is what usually happens to singers at twenty five. People, I think, forget if you grew up in New York, particularly as you grew up in New York, you're just you're two three years ahead of everybody else. You just have to grow up so much faster. Something d you way earlier. That is true. I mean, so sign at sixteen, graduated high school at sixteen, went to college is sixteen, and also started, you know, the experience, the journey of trying to become an artist at sixteen, and so all of it just was like boom, here you go. Tell me wait, so I want to know your sixteen year old self, it's Friday night, where are you going? Because I asked this question because I was in New York. That's the year. It's right when I came to New York. Well, me and my friends were either trying to sneak into the tunnel. There was a club called the Tunnel always played at so we were always trying sneaking a tunnel and try to see if we could like dress up enough and people wouldn't know that we're sixteen trying to sneak in. I said a lot of times, Um, we did that. We went a lot to the skate Key. There was a there was like a skating ring and the Bronx called the skate Key. And even me and my friends never skated because we were always like, if we need to run about of here, I don't want to be on pair of skates. So we never skated just in case we need to get out of there. And we never took off our jacket. And I never took off my jacket in places for years. For years, I never people would ask me, can I take a jacke olt keep my jacket with me? When you need to get out, you need to have your jacket. So that was like always just instinctual for sure. Um. And then we go to free go to each other's house. We would we would hang out like, um, you know, we would hang out in Harlem a lot, which is basically just a lot of walking around. You basically were you went nowhere, you just walked and walked. Different guys to try to talk to you, and you would just do the game and keep walking and walking into a lot of random walking. Yeah, that's a little bit of what we did. And what are you? What are you at that age? You're listening to what? So it's because the music scene taking the hip hop scene New York is exploding right. Oh, it's the best. It was so good. I mean it was Mary J. Blige. We were listening to the Woutane Clan. We were listening Nas, we were listening and listening to Biggie Smalls. We were listening to Tupac. We were listening to Um black Moon. Black Moon was popping at the time, were amazing. We were listening to Smith and Wesson. They were crazy. They were part of that whole BAI league. Um. We were listening to you know, like Swuv was was in the consciousness at the time, like Jade and Blackstone, or consciousness like big girl groups for big voices, a lot of in vogue. Um. We were listening to. Man, there was so much great music, you know, there was so much good stuff that was just so so many different sides. We were listening to like Shop of Ranks and you know, different different mad Cobra I remember, and there was all type of different reggae artists Bouchal Bantan and Um. There was just a bunch of different styles of music that was happening and we were listening to all of it. Yeah, and you're when do you start? You see you're in a girl band. I did not know that and the ambition. How long were you in the band? A while? I mean we really believed in that. We really wanted to take it all the way. We had our rehearsals all the time at the p PL on like one hundred and twenty fourth Street. Um, we were. I mean it was a couple of years. I think that we were just meeting up and trying to make it work and practicing and after school and working on us What kind of music was I when I couldn't get a sense of was that at that age? Are you making something similar to the kind of music you make today? Or was it? Yeah? It was mostly like we would sing our favorite songs. We were working on arrangements to the songs that we loved, so that if we ever had the opportunity to sing for anybody, we would be ready to kind of perform. Yeah, but didn't you write it? You? I made a note of it didn't you write what a song called I'm All Done? Was that you mentioned that in your book I'm All Alone as the first song alone, And that actually was triggered by the death of my grandfather and that happened that about twelve. I think I was about twelve at that time. And that was that wasn't really in the group at that time. I mean there was other like little groups that I was dibbled dabbling and at that time. But um, but when I wrote that song, the significance of that was just it was the first time an experience was painful enough to really, you know, provoke me to take all this information that I had with piano and with music and you know, sit down and create a thing. And it was the very first time and did that. And did you continue to write all the way from that point forward? Were you continuing to write music all the time or is it something that you left for a while and came back to, Like is this once I started, I really I recognized that it was something I could do. And I also recognized that it felt really good to just sit down and say what you feel. And I remember one of the one of the one of my dearest sisters who was also in the group with me. She and I. She started to play the bass and I played piano, and she and I would get together a lot and just kind of jam and write. And if my mother wasn't home when she was, I work late mostly all the time, and so she would my friend would come to my house and have her bass and I'd be on piano. And we were listening to a ton of Marvin Gaye What's Going On album, and the song that we listened so much to is Flying hind a Friendly Sky, which to me is one of the most unbelievable compositions ever because you hear this bass and it constantly walks up and it's like this relentless jazz zy of you know, stupor that he's describing how he's feeling being high, and it's it's so painful and beautiful at the same time. And and that was something that we were really fascinated with. And because she was starting to learn the bass, we would play like these type of energies and songs, and I think that's really good for both of us to just be hold up inside, you know, playing music, which is you know, music saves so many people's lives. What's the first song you wrote that you think it's your first truly great mature song like I saw your you would happily play to day at a concert. The very first song, the song I consider my first good song is a song called Butterflies, and that when I wrote when I was fourteen, and I would play it today, i'd play it right now. It's really sweet but beautiful and surprisingly surprisingly mature for fourteen in a way that it kind of seems timeless. It doesn't feel like, oh yeah, you can tell I was super young when I wrote that. You can if you can see how my songs developed over time and became more intricate. But but you don't pay attention to that. It just feels like a sweet song. You know. You know what I'm gonna ask you right now, don't you? Oh gosh, well, because I don't have a piano, No you can't. You just can't. You just like sing like two lines of it? See lines of it a cappella? Sure, I can. You know might be described your version, but that's all right. Um, let's see so versus lady. When I look into you, ah, sorry, the lies, You're the only one I need in my life. Baby, I just don't know how to describe Holloly may By feel inside. You give me butterfly, You got me fly. You're so high in the sky. I can't control the butterfly. You give me butterfly. You got me flying so high enough Skyhi, I can't control the butterfly. You wrote that when you were fourteen. Yeah, uh, I was sick. I was also listening to a lot of Anita Baker. I remember that too. My mother was listening to the tons of Anita Baker, and so back to that Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Anita Baker. There was this kind of jazzy undertone that I really related to a lot from those artists that she played when I was growing up. Yeah, when you stand up right now, did I take you back to fourteen? I was kind of remembering myself on my little piano that I told yell about Brent one ear doors sitting there and me just kind of I remember also listening to a lot of Brian McKnight at the time, because he was a he was a you know, such a beautiful piano player and songwriter, and I was just fascinated with listening and how that was and he would do these really pretty piano songs, and so I think I was taking some of that energy and just sitting at the piano and finding these chords and feeling the floe, and I was just a little own and I wrote that. Yeah, and you're see your mom comes home from work and you turned to her and you say, I've written the song and you play for you played for in the piano. What is your It must have blood is your mind? Blood? Like, what's your mom's reaction to this prodigy inside this towny apartment. I don't know. You would definitely need to ask her. I should just a bit of you her. I know, I'm just like, what does she think you for her? And talk to me later. But the the you know, I don't remember her. I'm sure that she was excited. And you know when I hear Egypt, eachyple will jump on the piano. He plays piano and and he'll come up with these songs and and I can hear inside of the song what's what's going on in his mind and what he's stumbling on and it's good. And I can say, man, he doesn't know it yet, and he doesn't it's not thinking about at all extra hard like that. But I say, you know, that kid has an ear like he has something that he understands stuff, And I'm always like, wow, I'm interested. I'm not pushing it or extra trying to feel uncomfortable, but I'm always interested. I don't know if she had the time to even get into it like that, or did I play it for her right away or was I working on it for some days. Did she just overhear me and just let me have my space. I don't recall her being like, oh my gosh, wow, that's like I don't remember her being all like that. She's always been enthusiastic and everything, so I'm not saying she didn't, but I don't recall it being kind of a thing. So I'm not sure what she was thinking or feeling at that time because I was like fourteen. When a little later, maybe at sixteen, when I started doing showcases and I started to maybe you know, it seemed more like a something that maybe she hadn't even be nervous for me about or whatever. But um, I'm interested in myself. Let's both call her. Shoot, we should have just add heard it. That's rights this happened. I reasonally asked that question is that one of the fascinating things about book is when you talk about at a very young age you meet these very very powerful people who hear you and instantly see that there's something special there. You know, I'm thinking about Clid Davis, you tell the pod and then and then Prince and Opera. But well, I want to talk about those three. I mean, first of all, it's by mind is still blown at the age of how were you nineteen when the music came out or when we were first still working on it, because that was probably that oh yeah, how old you know the agent which three of the most important cultural figures in the world of music and beyond music recognize something in you, right, that's let's see. Well, first, you know, I would say that it first started with my first manager, Jeff Robinson, who was the first one that even before me, you know, saw that there was something in me that was special and unique. And that was about that, you know, fourteen fifteen eight, where I was still with that first group, and he was the one that you know, said you really suppose you really should be a solo artist, of which I was like, no way, I don't Everyone who wants to be a solo artist. Sounds so boring and lonely, but um, you know he was right, you know he was he was right. He saw that I played already, saw that I wrote, He saw that I could do them both together and and it just created something that was that was special that he saw. And so he was the one that you know, took me around to the different labels and created the opportunity for me to meet these different people. That I met Peter Edge, who also became a really big part of my life and to this day as you know, the president. Uh and so he so he definitely introduced me to Peter and then um Peter. Then then Jeff also brought me to Columbia and that was the first time that I had my first situation, which didn't work out that well. And then and then between himself and Peter got me my first meeting with Clive Davis and that was about I'm gonna say that was about sixteen or seventeen, because I spent a couple of years with Columbia creating most of what became songs in a minor but they they just didn't understand the vision. They didn't get it, and and there's a lot of internal changes and stuff like that which happened all the time in business and so so um so that. So I met Clive at seventeen ish, and then I worked another couple of years, you know, finishing up the music. Do you remember what you played for him? So you go with Just for those who don't know, Clive Davis is like the most legendary figure, the greatest talent spot. I mean, he's the He's a god in the music world. You walk into his office at Arista at and you're seventeen were you were? You in intimidating? I was late and I was so annoyed that I was late, and Jeff was so mad at me that I was late. He's like, this is this is like the biggest meeting of your entire life, and you're late, and I felt bad. I didn't want to be late, like no one wants to be late. So so that was shitty. And unfortunately, you know, it was all my side that I think he had his meeting ran over, So something happened that I didn't seem late even though I was late. And and then of course I'm nervous because I'm like, you know this this is I. At the time, I was trying to get out of my previous label deal, which wasn't going well, and he was interested, and he heard already a group of songs because I created so much of what became songs in a minor, and I was playing stuff like I had a song called why do I Feel So Sad? I know that I played that. I had a song called Loving You, which was greatly inspired by Aretha Franklin, like that style of a song. I had my Butterfly song that I was playing the Shore, And then I was also playing some Brian McKnight covers and some Marvin Gay covers and stuff like that. I think that's probably that was my repertoire at the time. How long had you play for? I mean, you know, like a little probably like a twenty minute or fifteen twenty you know, a couple of songs, a couple of talking, a little you know, you are you looking at him while you're playing? I don't. I mean, I was definitely nervous. I hadn't, you know, I hadn't. I had done a lot of showcases because in order to get that first deal, we did a lot of showcases and and I had been performing a lot since that first group, and I had a sense of like how to put my thing on. But I was always I was always quite nervous. Was I looking at him? Probably a little, but not a lot, like not extra overcomefident, just like enough to do my thing. And he didn't he didn't have any doubt in his mind when he when he said I want he said, I want to work with you. It was anitation. I don't know if that happened exactly on that spot or if it was a call that maybe transpired later or a second meeting even but I'm but as I recall it, he definitely, I mean, he said he complimented me in ways that I had never been complimented. And to your point about the people that he's worked with, you know, you know, like the you know, like the Santanas and the Earth winning fires and and and just some of the absolute Joni Mitchell's and like some of the absolute all time greatest artists ever he's been a part of, you know, their creative trajectory. And so he would tell me that he thought I was a lot like a Joni Mitchell. And you know, he never stepped foot in the studio with her that she could create all her things and write all her songs. And she just came back to him and said, Okay, my music is done. And she was like, I see that, I see you like that, and I couldn't believe it. You know, imagine my seventeen year old self being told that he saw me like someone like a Joni Mitchell. I was like, what. So, yeah, he was very excited. He knew what he saw, he knew what he has had his eyes on, and he also knew that there was like one in a billion chance that Columbia would ever let me go. He was very clear about that too, and they did do. There ever lasting dismay. I'm sure to my ever lasting great fortune, let me come back. Alicia talks about the beginning of her friendship with Prince. We're back with Alicia Keys, who had to run to another interview, but Malcolm requested she tell her Prince story first. Wait, you gotta tell your Prince story, which was another one of my favorite parts of the book. That story is so bananas. So you want to do you want to cover a Prince song on on a minor and so, and it's up to you to call prince to ask that's the I mean, other people could call, but it would likely not go well. And I think that they understood that if I called maybe, it made it a little harder for him to say no, maybe. I mean, I don't know. I was he was definitely observing what I was doing, and he um, and he was you know, he was so voraciously a music lover and I'm really excited about new music all the time. I never met anybody like that who just knew the pulse of new music so so well. Um and so that that was him. So he was definitely observing what I was doing. And pause on this. This is really interesting. So at this point, you haven't put out any any records ever the press already I put out Fallen by that right right, And so he was he would have heard Fallen, Yeah, And then it was up to me to say, oh, as a part of the whole album, I also recorded how come you don't call me? And would it be okay for you to clear that to go on my album? Because he was he's the songwriter and you do have to clear covers with the song. So that was that was me asking him that question, and it was so crazy because like, first of all, I hadn't spoken to people that I adored like him ever before that phone call, Like I didn't just call it. That was not a normal occurrence. If you can imagine even today, you know, I missed him so much, and even today, if he was still alive and I was calling him, I would still feel nervous about call him. So just understand like that that part probably would just stay put. But if you can imagine that it's the very first time I'm ever calling somebody who I admire on a level that's like un explainable and calling to see if maybe he'd be cool with me performing his song after I've heard time and time again that he turns everything down. So that was what I was up against. It was about eighteen I think at the time, maybe nineteen, and I'm in some hotel room because we were doing some little tour through these different hotels and for like a press and stuff. And I'm in my hotel and I'm calling on the phone and the person says, hello, are you looking for Prince? And I'm like it's this prince and they're like no, hold on, they transfer me, and I'm like okay. So then the next person picks up Hello, I'm a Hello, and it's not him. Ei there. Hey, are you're looking for Prince? And I'm like, yes, so I'm looking for Okay, hold on the trans for me again. I'm like, how many times did they get? They trans for me at least four times, and so every time the call was transferred, my nerves got more and more terrified and scary. He finally got on the phone. I hear his voice, like it's him, it's his voice. I don't even know what to barely say anymore. I had some script written down, but you know, I start talking to him and he was super friendly and really encouraging and saying he heard what I've been working on and he knows that I'm writing and producing my stuff and he really loves that and keep that up. And that's when he invited me to Paisley Park. So I told him. I asked him if I could put it on the album, and he said, why don't you come to Paisley Park and play it for me. I was like, okay, it's like an audition. It's fantastic. So that was that was nuts. I mean, one of the craziest phone calls in my life, and you go, how long afterwards? How long did it take you to go to Paisley Park to play it for? Wasn't that long after because we were still trying to get it cleared, and he kind of made it seem like if I came and played, maybe he'd be more inclined. So I'm pretty sure we went quite quickly. And he has a whole audience of like hardcore prince lovers in an auditory. Yes, first of all, it was freezing. I mean, wow, it's so cold out there as winter. Um, I have my this little tiny leather jacket that I was wearing everywhere. I don't know what was the matter with me? Why did I not have another jacket? And um? And it was super freezing over there. But it was incredible. It's a world all its own. It was all his memorabilia and incredible moments that he's been a part of and contributed to culture, to musical culture, which is embodied all right there. And the doves and the purple and the pianos with writing on it, and the outfits from Purple Rain, and I mean it was literally stunning. It was the most beautiful place I ever saw. And then you know, for him to have this kind of performance space where the diehards could come and just like be a part of his girl. It was nuts. And he becomes a friend afterwards, definitely. He definitely became a mentor and a friends who checked in on me and would often come to my shows. He would often talk to me about the hard things, you know, as a performer, as a as an artist whose whose music is starting to reach new places and new people, and what that was, and the on the business side and ownership and being in control of what we create, and also just you know, even like sonically how it sounded at the shows. And he was very very specific. He didn't just come to like chill. He never came to just chill. He always came with an intention and a purpose and something to teach me. And so even though every time I spoke to him, I was just terrified and I was trying not to cry because he told me my sound, you know, just didn't translate well in that show, and I'd be like, oh, no, does that mean to sounded bad. He wasn't trying to tell me sounded bad. He wanted me to be aware that that part needed to improve, you know, And and so that in that way, he was like a big brother who would really tell you, you know, what's happening in a true way. One last thing I wanted to talk about was, you know, you just performed a Kobe's memorial service and the Grammys and Obama's inauguration. I thinking, you're in this really interesting position that very few artists are in, where you're You're like, you're the kind of prison. And we turned to m and I was thinking, who else has been that played that role in American music? And I would say, you know, maybe twenty years ago would be Paul Simon, remember after nine to eleven, he played the Boxer and he played that was a person whose music we turned to when we needed some kind of and Jordan civil rights, it would have been Harry Balafonte. Probably, Wow, that's that's the kind of I was thinking, you're in that tradition now you're like the I just wonder what that feels like. Are you aware? I mean there's a kind of responsibility that comes with that, and I kind of are you are you aware of that? And what does it? How does it make you feel? I definitely, um, I definitely know that as I've grown and as I've become more comfortable than my skin and more truly who I am, that I know that there is a deep connection that we share and that we have, and I know we've always had it, but I don't think I was ready before to truly be comfortable with it, to be to be completely just so much more open and so much more able to share my truth and what I'm learning, what I'm experiencing, and even my vulnerabilities and my pains and my fears, my sadnesses, the humanness that lives in all of us that I for so long felt like I had to put into a steel box so that I could get on with each day and just get through all the demands and things like that. And so now that I'm so much more clear about the fact that part of the beauty of us is all those sides that we spoke about at the beginning this conversation station, the scary, the vulnerable, the fear, the anger, all the parts that we kind of box up and put away because they're too out of control, or they're they're too personal, or they feel too raw. I've become so much more comfortable with expressing and since i've since I have and since I have started to know myself more and be comfortable with all those parts of myself, I find that the connection has deepened in a way that I never expected and I definitely wasn't ready for before because I wasn't even ready to do that with my own self. So now that that is happening, I do see how the connection is. To your point of what you're saying, there is something there that's creating, that's creating a level of deeper understanding, a level of solace, a level of connection that creates something which just has been circumstantial because we're in a really tumultuous time and we need each other just more than ever. And so I always wanted to be purposeful. I always wanted to do things that had meaning to them and not just empty reasons. And I've been getting these beautiful opportunities that even I have not known were meant to become what they did. I just was okay showing up and comfortable enough to show up and even through to all the scary things that I personally feel, you know, all the time, when I'm going to perform or when I'm going to, you know, put something on my back and walk out with it and hope that it all goes well. You know. So, I think the openness that I am experiencing is creating that kind of connection between us and I'm I don't know when it exactly starts, but I'm really loving it and I'm looking forward to more. If there's something beautiful about the fact that, like a by racial girl from Manhattan Plaza speaks for all of us. Yeah, like that's kind of that's kind of amazing. Wow, I'm loving it morning. Yeah, thank you so much. This has been so much fun and best to block. Yeah, Okay, have a good one and be safe and be careful and be good and hopefully we'll sit down and have a meal and talk. Yeah, thank you. Malisha Key's book More Myself a Journey is out now and a new album, Alicia, comes out in May fifteen. I can stream some of the artists and songs she mentioned in her conversation with Malcolm at Broken Record podcast dot com. Broken Record is produced with help from Jason Gambrell, Mela bell Lea Rose, Matt Leboza, and Martin Gonzalez for Pushkin Industries. Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond, thanks for listening,