Alicia Keys on her future goals: 'I already won'
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E-mail CNTV, November 18, 2016
Alicia Keys' new album 'Here' is doing great on the billboard charts, but it's somewhat of a departure for the 35-year-old recording artist. This time she's ditching the typical love songs and tackling things like social justice and women's issues with her lyrics. Let's hear more from Keys and what she has to say about "Here".
Alicia Keys is winning. Not because you say she is, but because she says she is.
As the piano-playing singer releases her sixth album and reflects on the 15 years since she put out her Grammy-winning debut album "Songs in A minor," she feels content. Super content.
When asked about her future goals, this is what she had to say:
"I already won. And I won because I've been able to create and maintain what I believe is my artistic vision, you know what I mean? A real artistic vision that I've had from the beginning, especially with this record. More than I ever have before. More clearly than I ever have before with more intention, more purpose, more like, you know, craftsmanship. With a deeper, better writing style and musicianship and rawness and realness and honesty and vulnerability. And like, and I honor that," said Alicia Keys.
Keys has had a string of hits and successes since 2001, winning 15 Grammy Awards and launching hits with "No One", "Fallin'" and other tracks. She's seen her album sales not match previous releases _ much like most of the recording industry. Despite debuting at No. 2 on Billboard's 200 albums chart this month, her new album "Here" only moved 50,000 equivalent album units in its first week.
"I've been working on this music for quite a while and this particular album is where I feel like the most important album I've ever made, ever created and I love it the most, you know? So I feel like people are going to get so much a sense of who I am and have a chance to have so much conversation and dialogue. I feel like there's so much inside of it, that there is so much for you to feel and hear and get lost in and think about and be like. I expect your face to be very scrunched up when you listen to this album. That's how I would like you to react," said Alicia Keys.
Though she's satisfied, Keys says her new album does show that she's still growing - as a musician and a truth teller.
"In so many ways I feel so brand new. And I think that's also just because the place I've reached in myself. And that's why people say to me like, 'Man, this is a whole new energy that you have. Like a whole new vibe. What is all of that?' And that's like you know it's just learning and uncovering and getting to know of myself, right here, right now. And you know, that's why the album is called that because here we are right now, all of us right here. This is what it feels like and this is what it looks like according to me. And I wonder what it looks like according to you? And I have a feeling that we can relate," said Alicia Keys.
The album is also heavy on conversational interludes, much like Solange's recent "A Seat at the Table" and Lauryn Hill's epic "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill".
