Alicia Keys Talked Candidly About Her Transformation After A Year Of Crisis

In March 2020 Keys released the memoir More Myself: A Journey, and it was followed by her seventh album Alicia. She told Billboard magazine that working on the companion projects was the best therapy she’d ever had. The singer said, “I ended up being able to see the moments that things shifted. When you’re living it, you’re not really reflecting on it.” This informed something Keys then told Elle magazine. 

Keys said, “The advice I would give my 20-year-old self is, you already have it right. You don’t have to change anything. You don’t have to fix anything; you don’t have to try to fit in anything or be whatever people want you to be. All you have to do is keep being you.” Of course, this personal reflection didn’t mean Keys was unaware of how tumultuous 2020 had been for the world.

“Alicia 2020 is super tuned-in,” Keys stated to Glamour U.K. magazine. “I am fully in my power. I’m unafraid of taking risks. I’m unafraid of stepping out on a limb for something that’s extremely important. I am ready to shift, change and remould, not only myself, but everything around me and the world as we need it. So, I’m here to be of service, man.”

Keys, whose real name is Alicia Augello Cook, was born in 1981 in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. She was raised by a single mother who encouraged her to play the piano from an early age. Her skill with the instrument led to her attending the city’s highly regarded Professional Performance Arts School. She graduated valedictorian at 16, having demonstrated an exceptional aptitude for more traditional academia alongside her obvious musical talent.

Incredibly, she then began attending Columbia University at only 16 years old. She was already signed to Columbia Records at this point, too, having picked them following a record company bidding war when she was just 15. She only went to college for four weeks, though, before deciding to focus on music full-time.

When it came time to choose a stage name, the 16-year-old Keys was leaning toward “Alicia Wilde.” Then her manager told her he’d had a dream about needing keys to unlock his briefcase. In 2006 she told Jane magazine, “I was like, ‘Keys? I play the piano keys, and keys unlock doors. Wow, that’s perfect.’ It described me, what I loved to do, what I wanted to do.”

Songs in a Minor, Keys’ debut album, was released in 2001 and catapulted her to fame and critical acclaim. It went six-times platinum, selling 6 million units in the U.S. and a further 12 million worldwide. Keys won five Grammy Awards for the album, which tied the record for most wins in a single year for a female solo artist. All of a sudden, she was a superstar.

Over the next two decades, Keys cemented her place as an icon of modern music. She racked up number-one singles and Grammy Awards like they were going out of fashion and transitioned into TV by becoming a judge on The Voice. She even tried her hand at acting, starring in movies such as The Nanny Diaries and Smokin’ Aces, as well as the small-screen drama Empire.

In terms of her personal style, when Songs in a Minor came out in 2001 Keys projected a streetwise New York City image. She wore jeans, Timberland boots and a hat over her braided hair. In a 2015 blog post on her official website, she wrote, “I had the baggy/braided/tough N.Y. tomboy thing mastered. That was who I was – or who I chose to be – and I felt comfortable there.”

All the same, this confident persona was at least partly an act, as revealed by Keys in a 2013 interview with The Daily Telegraph. The singer admitted, “I had a vision for myself and felt I wasn’t allowed to express it…” She added, “So I did feel like I had to control it. I had to claim my space. It was about demanding respect, saying, ‘Here’s what I want,’ and pushing people as opposed to being pushed around.”

The image Keys constructed led to her being labeled as a homosexual by the media. She didn’t identify that way and felt uneasy about what was being said, so she began to alter her appearance. She revealed, “I put on dresses and didn’t braid my whole head up, so people could see more of the ‘real’ me – even though at that point I’m sure I was more confused than ever… [about] what the real me was.”

On top of that, around this time a journalist misconstrued something Keys had said in an interview. It led to her being badly misquoted, and she felt judged by the media and people reading the interview. In her blog post, she wrote, “Out came the shell again and me under it. Hiding, piece by piece. Little by little. More and more.” 

“I became comfortable hiding – my intelligence, my physical appearance, my truths, my thoughts, myself,” continued Keys. But, in 2015 she decided enough was enough. In her blog, she wrote, “Just the other day it hit me. OMG! Alicia! Why are you choosing to be that person? That is so old and outdated. Stop!”

Keys decided she was going to allow herself to be smart, beautiful, radical, sexy, tough, bold, and kind. She explained, “I can be all these things all at the same time. I don’t have to give up one to be the other. I don’t have to hide anymore, I don’t have to pretend and hold back, I don’t have to think that my intelligence, beauty, and sensuality are intimidating to others.”

Her continuing transformation in attitude reached a new watershed in 2016 when Keys posted an essay on feminist website Lenny Letters. She began, “Before I started my new album, I wrote a list of all the things that I was sick of. And one was how much women are brainwashed into feeling like we have to be skinny, or sexy, or desirable, or perfect. One of the many things I was tired of was the constant judgment of women.”

Keys continued, “The constant stereotyping through every medium that makes us feel like being a normal size is not normal, and heaven forbid if you’re plus-size. Or the constant message that being sexy means being naked.” She then described arriving for a photoshoot fresh from the gym – which she later pinpointed as a massively significant moment.

Photographer Paola Kudacki had a suggestion – taking photos of Keys in her natural state, complete with gym clothes, hair scraped back and no makeup. She felt this would capture Keys at her rawest and realest, which would fit perfectly with the themes of her new album. Initially the star felt reticent, but then she embraced it.

“It was just a plain white background, me and the photographer intimately relating, me and that baseball hat and scarf and a bunch of invisible magic circulating,” beamed Keys. “And I swear it is the strongest, most empowered, most free, and most honestly beautiful that I have ever felt.” She added, “I hope to God it’s a revolution. ‘Cause I don’t want to cover up anymore.”

This all led to Keys pledging to give up makeup and exist in a more natural state. She attended the MTV Video Music Awards makeup-free and even sang at the soccer Champions League Final without the smallest trace of makeup on her face. Fans and other celebrities soon joined in her “#nomakeup” social media hashtag. Her revolution had been born.

Fast forward to November 2020, and Keys was speaking to Glamour U.K. magazine about a range of topics. She discussed the launch of her new beauty brand, the Black Lives Matter movement, and how she and her family adapted during the coronavirus pandemic. Overall, the transformation she’d already been experiencing had only accelerated in what had proved to be the most tumultuous of years for people around the globe. 

When it came to daily home life during the pandemic, Keys admitted she and her husband Swizz Beatz had – like everyone else – struggled to find a healthy balance. Their house was full, as she and Beatz have two children, five-year-old Genesis and ten-year-old Egypt. But Beatz also has three kids from previous relationships: Nicole, Kasseem, and Prince Nasir, who are 12, 13 and 20, respectively.

“Most importantly, we’ve been healthy and safe,” revealed Keys. “It was definitely a tricky experience figuring out how to work home-schooling, career, life, and personal stuff. But I did feel really grateful to know that [the children] were in that space, and I was able to help participate in that.”

The Grammy-winner continued, “Because so often when they go off to school, you don’t see them for eight hours and they come back, and you don’t know what their world was like. I liked teaching, and I always say that if I wasn’t an artist, I would be a teacher. I mean, being a mom is being a teacher, but it’s a very tricky balance with home-schooling because often they’d be like, ‘You’re so mean, mom!’”

One thing that Keys learned over the course of 2020 was that, even though she had so many responsibilities with her kids, she needed to leave some alone-moments to herself, too. She admitted to Glamour U.K., “I couldn’t get a handle on how to find the time that I needed, especially because I have a five-year-old, a ten-year-old, and a 13-year-old. They were all at these different places of needing me.”

In the end, Keys carved out the time to dive into a book and to keep her daily diary updated. But she also became extremely dedicated to exercise and meditation. She revealed, “I realized if I didn’t meditate and work out – and I don’t care if I had to get up at 4:00 a.m. – if I’m not doing it, I didn’t feel like I had any space for myself.”

In common with many people in 2020 Keys was both captivated and activated by the Black Lives Matter movement. She teamed with the National Football League to launch an endowment fund dedicated to aiding black communities and their businesses. The fund, whose goal was to empower Black Americans and stir conversations about racial justice, was worth a staggering $1 billion.

Keys told Glamour U.K., “As an artist, I’m always thinking about how I can use my platform to further racial equality.” With passion, she added, “I can’t believe how many years of systemic racism we have to unravel, and come to terms with, and fight against, and redesign, and recreate.” The Empire State of Mind singer believed the world needed to be shaken out of apathy.

“I feel like we have to literally force people to understand and to rethink how things are happening, how they’re running, who’s in charge, who we’re creating opportunities for,” stated an emotional Keys. “And at this point, I just think that it’s so deeply woven into the fabric. It’s not okay.”

For Keys, a black woman raising black children in America, the Black Lives Matter movement is hugely personal. When Glamour U.K. asked her if raising her sons within the current state of the country frightened her, she gave an impassioned response. Tellingly, she revealed that she and her husband had indeed spoken to their children about how to respond to the police.

“We have a lot of conversations with our 13-year-old,” Keys stated. “What happens if a police officer rolls up on you and they’re blaming you for something that you absolutely haven’t done, or they’re aggressive with you. That’s not really something you should be having to worry about at 13, or 12, or 11, or 16.”

Overall, Keys had been inspired by the public’s appetite to combat racism. She said, “This whole idea of anti-racism is a really powerful statement. It is a really important conversation because we were never talking about that, not even five years ago. Now is definitely time to question everything and reformulate.”

Thankfully, Keys does believe there is reason to think the future will be better. She revealed, “I’m an eternal optimist. I really want to believe in humanity, I really do, because we don’t come out of the womb hating anything; we are little, beautiful, pure beings. And so, I know that we can also begin to teach our children to be better and to understand what’s required of us.”

Keys also revealed how the launch of Keys Soulcare, her lifestyle brand, spoke to changes she’d gone through over the years in terms of her relationship with makeup. As we mentioned, back in 2016 she had made a splash when she boycotted makeup as a means of protesting against society’s unfair judgment of women’s looks. Four years later, though, she was now wearing it again, but this time with a difference. 

In 2020 Keys instead claimed that her makeup brand was a way for her to show her full self to the world. She could use it to express the feminine side of her personality but also her more androgynous aspect. She admitted that her attitude toward makeup, and specifically how it played into the music industry’s expectations of her, had changed drastically over the years.

“Makeup was a big thing for me,” admitted Keys. “I had been wearing it since I was, like, 16 years old. And then, as I got into the music world, it was what you did every day to do your television, or to do your shoot. So, I did it because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

The problem, though, was that makeup became more than just something Keys was expected to use: it became an unhealthy obsession. She admitted, “I realized I became addicted to it. I didn’t feel comfortable without it.” The Girl on Fire songstress felt she had begun to subscribe to society’s beauty standards without even knowing she was doing it.

“You do internalize what’s around you a lot,” a thoughtful Keys confessed. “I think when you see images and standards of beauty, you can automatically think to yourself, ‘Oh, isn’t that what beautiful is? Shouldn’t I emulate that?’ [There are] all these standards you can subscribe to, without even realizing it.”

Soulcare, then, meant a lot more to Keys than simply another revenue stream. She said, “I struggled so much in my skin and really even being clear about my self-confidence and self-worth. So, it’s a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to create something [like this] because I wanted something that would work for me when I was having difficult times.”

Keys’ approach to Soulcare reflected how her outlook had turned around over the last few years and especially during the course of 2020. She explained, “I’ve been thinking about the concept of Soulcare and what it means to take care of yourself – your mind, body, soul, and spirit – to create a ritual to uplift yourself. We need that now more than ever.”

Keys is all about self-care. But let's be honest: this probably a lot easier to practice when you live in an immensely lavish property. It was only when the singer and her husband, Beatz, put their New Jersey estate on the market for $14.9 million in 2015 that fans realized just how well-off they actually were. These pictures had us "Fallin" for their gorgeous home...

With a combined net worth of $195 million, the “Empire State of Mind” singer and record producer, who have been married since 2010, could have chosen to live anywhere in the world. But by purchasing this Englewood mansion in 2013, the couple decided to stay close to their New York roots.

The property is located just across the Hudson River from The Bronx in an area known for its luxury homes. Yet despite the pad feeling a world away from the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple, it takes just half an hour to reach Manhattan.

Though the house is perfectly placed, however, the couple – who have two sons, Egypt and Genesis – decided to sell in August 2015. Their stunning property was listed with Sotheby’s International Realty for almost $15 million.

Why exactly are they selling such an impressive mansion? Well, there are reports that the family want a bit more space: perhaps the 25,000-square-foot property, which is surrounded by five-acre grounds, isn’t quite big enough.

Affectionately nicknamed Bubble Hill, the red-brick Georgian-themed house has the necessary safeguards for high-profile residents. A guardhouse protects against unwanted guests, while a high-tech security system adds an extra level of protection.

Though the Georgian style captures an early-19th-century look, the luxury mansion was actually constructed in 1986. Adding to its grandeur is a pillared porte-cochere that shelters guests who arrive via the expansive driveway.

Inside, the property continues the classical stylings of the exterior with archways and Greek columns in many of its 32 rooms. Then there are the chandeliers that adorn the ceilings of the living and dining rooms.

The property’s furnishings, however, owe more than a passing nod to modernism, with plush fabrics and outrageous designs creating a pleasing contrast against the building’s orthodoxy. Works from Keys’ extensive art collection – including paintings by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat – enhance the contemporary mood.

Friends of the famous duo needn’t worry about having a place to stay when they come to visit; the house has a whopping eight bedrooms, after all. There are also 14 bathrooms – so no awkward conversations about who gets to shower first in the morning.

The master bedroom has its own living room, which accompanies the two main living spaces as well as the house’s spacious conservatory. Large enough to fit seven people, it’s the perfect place to continue intimate gatherings long into the night.

Among the estate’s features is a two-story garage that’s large enough for five vehicles; it’s so colossal, in fact, that it’s probably bigger than most people’s houses. There are also a couple of motor courts.

If sold, the estate will net Keys and Beatz a profit of $2.9 million. The couple bought the pad from previous occupant and Beverly Hills Cop star Eddie Murphy for $12 million.

The increase in price comes from the $2 million renovations – most obviously an art gallery – the couple initiated. In addition to paintings by Warhol and Basquiat are works by Joan Miro and Takashi Murakami.

Indeed, the pair’s ever-growing collection is reportedly the main reason behind their decision to sell. Their new property, wherever it may be, will have to have a lot of wall space.

Rumors are that their new house won’t actually be too far away. Because there aren’t any suitable properties nearby that are ready to move in to, however, the couple are apparently considering commissioning their own.

Keys and Beatz will do well to design a swimming pool that’s as impressive as their current one, though. With its conservatory-like design the pool feels as though it’s outdoors – with all the comforts of staying indoors.

In keeping with the active theme is an on-site tennis court, a gym and a dual-lane bowling alley. And after an action-packed few hours, the family can enjoy some downtime in their very own cinema. They having everything, it seems, under one roof.

While the size of Keys and Beatz’ Englewood mansion property is mightily impressive – a case in point being the separate elevator access to the north and south wings – it’s the number of amenities that ensure Bubble Hill really is a luxury mansion. It will certainly make an excellent home for one very lucky, and very wealthy, buyer.

Who that will be remains to be seen. But in the meantime Keys and Beatz, and their two kids, are no doubt making the most of their plush surroundings.