Side-stepping all traces of sophomore slump, The Diary Of Alicia Keys sees the New York singer/ songwriter triumph once more with an album rooted firmly in Soulsville, USA. Her feet, however, she tells Hattie Collins, remain defiantly on terra firma.
Alicia Keys likes to smile. And laugh. A lot. “I’m having fun,” she cheerfully insists flashing the whitest teeth in all the land despite being half the way through a 15 hour promo schedule from hell.
Today’s fun-packed agenda, set in New York’s Avatar studios a few blocks North of Times Square, has included tweaking of new album The Diary Of Alicia Keys, followed by Diary playback to po-faced journalists, an utterly impressive live performance of Diary to smiley-faced journalists, before back to back interviews with now positively gooey-faced journalists who relentlessly gush ‘so, Alicia, tell us about your fantastic soul-tastic new album then.’
Yet a bit of hard work won’t bring out the diva within from the woman dubbed the modern day Aretha Franklin, nor threaten to dim the brightest of ear-splitters. “I’m bubbling over with excitement. Diary is an album you’re going to want to own ‘cos in about 50 years this is gonna be one of those joints,” Keys grins for no doubt the umpteenth time in increasingly husky New York tones.
“Its cool, ‘cos I’m very proud of Diary. For me it’s a complete body of work that brings you on a journey through thought and sound and feeling and emotion. It’s very personal to me and that’s why I chose the title. So I’m on a high. And might I say I’ve had some great questions,” she says seemingly without sarcasm in response to how she maintains her effervescent demeanour without the aid of copious drugs and alcohol. “The worst part about interviews is when you have somebody who seems that they could care less really and they’re like,” she adopts an atonal voice, “`so where are you from?’ You want to shoot somebody,” she deadpans.
Alicia Keys likes ‘good’ questions. Questions that are thought provoking, clever, stimulating, she says. ‘What’s your favourite colour’ need not apply, thanks, although no doubt she’ll find a cheery reply regardless. ‘Did you write these questions’ she enthusiastically asks a departing TV interviewer who, reluctantly, admits he didn’t. “Oh, well,” she seems genuinely disappointed. “They’re great. You should tell your researcher that.”
The numerous magazine covers (15 in the US alone), TV and radio shows she graced last time round during the A Minor maelstrom, are ready once more to quiz the secret to Key’s success. Hardly surprising, after selling a whacking 10 million copies of debut album Songs In A Minor where she melded Mozart with Method Man and Millie Jackson. Minor received (deep breath) five Grammy’s, two Billboards, two American Music Awards, two NAACP’s, three Soul Train’s, two World Music Awards, one ECCHO and a MOBO - “I don’t do my music to get Grammy’s” she points out pointlessly – so of course the inevitable vultures are circling to see if it was all a fluke. Is she destined to follow the path of Alanis Morrisette and Tracey Chapman as the owner of one dazzling debut ensued by several mediocre follow-ups?
“I get asked whether I feel any type of apprehension - but I really don’t,” breezes Keys. “I have too much to get off my chest to worry about that and I approach each album as a new experience. Besides,” she cocks her head to one side, “I can’t really waste my time thinking that way ‘cos I have too much to say.”
Indeed as the playback, both live and recorded, reveal Key’s has ignored expectations of producing A Minor 2 and instead carefully crafted an A Minor Plus. Eloquently stuffed full of sweet soul stirrings and dense drum patterns coupled with a far-ranging voice mightily enhanced by a yearlong world tour, her second effort far overshoots the first. She experiments with Barry White style voice-overs on seventies soul lead single You Don’t Know My Name, borrows beats from the Notorious BIG on the searing If I Was Your Woman and goes right back to basics on the gorgeous recorded-as-live ivory tickler If I Ain’t Got You. Classical piano is soaked in soul with thumping great hip hop beats on hand to ensure every appetite is sated.
“Each song has its own separate story. Just as much as classical, jazz and soul influences me so does hip hop ‘cos that’s how I grew up, that’s who I am,” she explains of her melting-pot musicality. “Growing up in New York, there’s no getting around it. True hip hop to me is just as soulful as Marvin Gaye.”
And so the crowds gather once more to wonder whether it was hard growing up as a ‘hip hop loving mixed-race child in a single parent family from the tough New York area of Hells Kitchen?’ A grin. “It all defines who I am. My mother has been a great inspiration to me.” We discover her first big break came not when performing at the 2001 pre-Grammy party with Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones, nor before a TV audience of millions on the Oprah Winfrey Show, but instead at 16 when meeting her manager, Jeff Robinson, who “helped me see how much more I had to offer if I pushed myself.”
This from the girl who began classical piano at six, attended vocal coaching and performing arts classes while at high school and squeezed in studying at Columbia University with recording commitments while signed to Columbia Records. Yes, she admits she was disappointed when her first deal with Columbia didn’t work out but it all turned out happily in the end when Clive Davis, CEO of J Records and Svengali behind Patti Smith and Whitney Houston- spotted her. Indeed it was Davis who secured her the spot on Oprah in the first place.
There is of course much more to Ms Keys than the music and rags to riches story. She’s the unaffected type who’ll pop to her local eatery – “this very small place downtown; its Venezuelan food so they have this great fish that they grill and it tastes great.” Otherwise you’re more likely to find her in the crowd (and sometimes onstage) at live music hotspot BB Kings - “That’s a great place, Miss Roberta Flack was there recently,” - than out partying with J.Lo and co: “I’m not really huge on the whole club thing. I don’t end up having a good time.”
She gamely fields off all manner of intrusive questions, who she’s seeing, if she’s gay, her favourite sexual position (okay maybe not the last one) with utter ease. “Fortunately I haven’t gotten caught up in any type of huge scandals because I’m a very low-key type of person,” she reasons. “ And I think it’s good, it adds a little mystery. Sometimes I think people know too damn much, you know what I mean?”
And the gay allegations? “Oh, every woman in this whole universe has been called gay the minute they touch the television. I think its because you’re a strong female, you know,” she shrugs before reluctantly admitting she has another half, but get lost no names and no more info (delivered with disarming display of exemplary dentistry of course). “I think it’s very hard, being a woman in this industry, or any industry. I think we’re sometimes looked at as an object - like all the focus is on our private lives and the jokes are about somebody’s ass - are we just a piece of meat?” she raises her eyebrows. “But I think we’re very strong people and thankfully it’s changing, it’s evolving.”
She likes to talk, it would appear, but she says little, careful not to give too much away beyond Alicia Keys the 22 year old Piano Playing Protégé. She’d rather use her vocal box to sing those stunning songs or put it to really good use by getting political. “I recently spoke to Congress about the AIDS epidemic. That experience was unbelievable. To be able to have some type of voice as a woman in a county so big, and influence things in a positive way made me realise how amazing where I live is.” What, America land of the unfailing democratic election practices and bull-headed war tactics? “In some places I would not be able to have a voice, that would not be allowed as a woman,” she remarks lightly.” It really made me not take that for granted and see how important that is.”
Enough politics – just who the devil is this strong, unfailingly polite, uber-professional perfectionist seemingly consumed by quavers, bass-lines and treble-clefs, the apparent cause of her celebrity, the real secret of her success. Where are the demons, what are those lurking skeletons? “I really, really lead a low-key life, truthfully, and I like it like that. I feel that if you’re riding around in limousines and hopping out with 30 people wearing a huge hat and you’re so fabulous the whole time then it’s going to be really hard to be a normal person,” she says.
But a normal person doesn’t sell 10 million albums and stay that way, surely? “That’s what I am – a normal person. I’m just Alicia and that’s who I love to be. When I’m home I love to walk down the streets and just talk to people and find out what’s going on,” she says flashing one final glimpse of magnificent molar. “I’m definitely low-key and that’s how it will stay.”
The Diary Of Alicia Keys is released on December 1st 2003 on J Records
A version of this article appeared in the Glasgow Herald
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