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In an era of stars who pose better than they sing, Ms. (The concert was streamed live on YouTube, and clips of individual songs are now at /aliciakeyssme.) Keys’s AIDS charity, Keep a Child Alive during the show a video screen urged fans to donate via text message. Tuesday was World AIDS Day, and the concert was a benefit for Ms. 15, and it squeezed an arena production videos, large band, a superfluous dance bit onto the theater stage. The concert was a preview of her new album, “The Element of Freedom,” due for release Dec. Her craftsmanship and equanimity are a comfort, a demonstration of what she counsels. She promises devotion and calls for determination through every struggle. Keys writes and sings about heartache and sorrow, usually on the way to overcoming them. But that same steadfastness has also emerged as a shortcoming onstage more than in the studio, where the sound of her voice is persuasive. Her message, particularly to women, is to endure and prevail. In a career as one of this decade’s most dependable hit makers, that underlying poise has been her strength. Keys measured every note, every bit of between-song patter, every motion and every vocal inflection, even when she was making her voice sound tearful or imploring or driven. I knew all the words, I had mad singalongs to it.“I know I’m losing control,” Alicia Keys sang in “Love Is Blind,” the song that started her set at the Nokia Theater on Tuesday night. I wouldn't stop playing this album I loved it so much. This one came out when I was in my early teens and I remember just repeating this over and over again.
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My favourite Alicia Keys album would have to be As I Am. She just seems like a really lovely person and that clearly comes through in her music.
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What I also really love about her is how genuine she seems outside of the music. Then, on top of her amazing, soulful voice and this sick R&B track, seeing her in the middle of the street just busting out on the keys. I can't remember the exact moment but I remember seeing her on one of the music video shows on a Saturday morning and her having those cornrows and those tight jeans. I was eight years old when Songs in A Minor came out.
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I'm sitting there going, 'This is crazy, Alicia Keys is talking to me, she knows my name, she knows my music, she knows my voice, this is insane'. Hung out a little bit and had a bit of a chat and said how much she loved my set and thanked me for supporting her. She came and introduced herself like the boss she is. When you support big, blockbuster artists like that, you never really know if you can approach them, but she came to my trailer. There were a couple thousand people in the audience and even though we had a daytime slot, I was just thanking my lucky stars that I got to do that. Opening for Alicia Keys was one of those career highlights I will remember for the rest of my life.īeing able to do that show really blew my mind and blew the band's mind, to be able to play to that many people. I went from the weird immigrant kid from the islands with plaits and baggy pants and a weird Bilum Bag that I carried all my schoolbooks in, to the girl with the amazing voice. I sang it at a school graduation in front of the entire school. Just as it was life-changing for Alicia, it was life-changing for me. The first song that I ever sang in front of people was 'Fallin''. I really needed her in that time to reassure me that these styles that suited her also suited me and made me feel that there was an appreciative beauty around the way that I looked. I remember looking in the mirror after she did it and realising the beauty of my African-ness and realising my link to my culture and how strong and powerful I felt.Īlicia Keys is this bi-racial artist who toys with different braid styles, so my idea of my own beauty was linked to her very strongly growing up. I remember going to an African function and someone's grandmother was over from Nigeria and she cornrowed my hair intricately into beautiful patterns. This really refreshing woman who is just untouchable. It was like this woman just embodied every way I wanted to express myself as a 12-year-old. I grew up with one side of my family being very African and steeped in the music tradition of that, and the other side of an Irish family with my grandmother, who really loved classical arts and musicals, who would take me to galleries and take me to see orchestras play.