Celebrity – Alicia Keys
ALICIA KEYS, 35, is so comfortable in her own skin, she’s on a crusade to empower more women to love themselves the way they are.
Multi-award winner Alicia Keys is enjoying life more than ever these days. It’s the result of her having thought long and hard about who she was and what mattered most to her. In the course of that process of self-reflection, she had an epiphany of sorts and realised that she needed to get back to her true self. Meeting up with her was an uplifting experience in itself. She greets you with a broad smile, wearing no make-up as part of her decision to abandon cosmetics, and looking very chic in a basic outfit consisting of leather jacket, T-shirt, and jeans. Her journey of self-awakening was the primary inspiration for Back to Life, the song she wrote for the movie Queen
of Katwe, the new film starring Lupita Nyong’o as the mother of Phiona, a young girl who escapes the slums of Uganda to become an international chess champion.
A long time crusader for female empowerment, Keys believes that the film carries a powerful message for all women anxious to find their way in life. “This story is one of many incredible stories that we find all over world about young people struggling to find themselves,” Keys says. “I’ve experienced a similar path of selfdiscovery and that’s why Phiona’s story was so personal to me. I wrote this song about a young woman trying to find her way and I related that to my own path as a girl and later as a woman. A winner of 15 Grammy Awards, 35-yearold Keys also released her new album,
Here. “I think this album is definitely the best music I’ve ever made. It has a vibe to it that I’m very proud of – it’s very relevant to things that are happening in the world today and for me it has both an artistic and activist component.
I’m much more vulnerable and open than I ever have been in my music, and there’s a while new energy in that,” says Keys. The performer actually worked with her husband, mega superstar hip-hop producer, Swizz Beats. “Usually we like to keep our work separate. But one day we were talking and he told me that he really thought that we should be writing together and that he wanted to be part of that experience with me.
“A lot of people will say that working with your spouse is probably a bad idea, but in this cas, we never had those kinds of stupid arguments where you get on each other’s nerves. We had a great time working together and it made the process a lot more fun for me.” This summer, Keys gave a series of concerts where she banned the use of cellphones as a way of encouraging her fans to be more present and less distracted during her performances, declaring: “I just want us to have this time together.”
Keys, who grew up in New York, currently stays n Englewood, Chicago, together with her husband, and their two children, Egypt and Genesis Ali. How does she achieve that elusive balance between life as an artist and mother? “I believe that your family is always going to be the thing that anchors your life, and give it purpose. My children are opening me up to so many new experiences and I’m also lucky in that I’m able to give them a good life.” She adds: “Sometimes you find that when you’re working a lot you worry about not being there for your kids as much as you’d like. But all parents have that same concern. There’s no perfect solution. You try to find a way that works for you and your family and apply yourself to that.”
What was the meaning behind giving their children Biblical names? “I wanted to give them names that would encourage their way of seeing themselves as unique individuals. I had the idea of naming my first child Egypt because I had felt so inspired after taking a trip to Egypt. When it came to the name of Genesis, I saw it as something that would convey the sense of something very new and fundamental.”
On the physical appearance front, the mother-of-two has taken to running as a way of maintaining a sexy body. “I’ve also found it very helpful to meditate every morning, which helps to calm me when I feel a lot of stress and anxiety.” In 2015, Keys made a public announcement that was not going to wear make-up anymore. “Part of my wanting to return to my true self is to stop imposing layers of make-up on my face. I just want to be myself and not hide behind a protective wall of make-up. As women, we need to accept ourselves for who we are and also accept that we’re all different and there’s no such thing as perfection when it comes to beauty. Beauty lies in our diversity.
“We can all learn to stop hiding what we really think, even if our views might clash against what some segments of society thinks. We need to express ourselves and stand up for who we are.” She really is an empowerment crusader, isn’t she? “(Laughs) I want everybody to be able to be happy in life. That means understanding our own imperfections. But you can also use your self-awareness to be able to do the best with what you have and focus your energy to making your world and the world at large a better place.”