Member Since: 5/27/2016
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Alicia's new album details
Quote:
Alicia Keys has sung many songs about New York City, but she’s never released an ode to the Big Apple quite like “Gramercy Park.” The track, which she recently recorded as she prepares for her upcoming and still-untitled new album, is a marvel of a thing, with warm guitars and buttery vocals built around a hook that fits the star’s current mind-set like a glove: “Now you’re falling for a person who’s not even me,” goes the chorus. In a West Hollywood, Calif., recording studio, Keys cranks up the volume and grooves along to the steady backbeat, a beatific smile on her face. “There were times when I didn’t even know who I was anymore,” she says. “I’d spent so much time trying to be who I thought you wanted me to be.”
This is the most honest she’s ever been in her music. “For so long, I was looking for other people’s approval,” she says. “I’ve never allowed myself to be vulnerable before.” In new songs like the haunting “Kill Your Mama” and the pounding anthem “The Gospel,” her lyrics explore themes ranging from institutional racism to the environment—but she’s also not afraid to interrogate her own faults. “There’s certain lessons in our lives that we’re going to keep experiencing until we get it right,” she says. “I’m a rescuer—a terrible rescuer. I want everybody to be good. I want everybody to be happy.” This period in her life, she says, has been about leaning into those imperfections. “Look—some of it’s not going to be okay,” she says. “Everything’s not going to be good. What is the most important thing? That you’re conscious and aware of yourself.”
Her new material was inspired by a lengthy list of frustrations she felt needed addressing. After parting ways with her management, Keys let her longtime friend and business manager, Erika Rose, help direct her career. “She asked me if I was ready to make the record I was born to make,” Keys says. “She was like, ‘Bob Dylan. Nina Simone. Bob Marley. Marvin Gaye. That type of record.’ We started to get to this place where I was able to verbalize this list of things I wanted to write about.” What made the cut? “You know all the s–t I’m sick of? I’m sick of the way women are treated in the world. I’m sick of myself. I’m sick of putting myself in this box because I don’t want to say anything that’s going to be taken the wrong way. Every time anyone asks me a question, I have to perfectly craft [my response] so it offends no one. I’m sick of that s–t, too! I’m sick of the way boys can’t paint their nails. I’m sick of the bulls–t stereotyping that we do to people.”
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