New album by Alicia Keys: The Instance – Culture

Alicia Keys could be the most boring pop star on the planet. Always good, always disciplined, always loved. No wars of divorce, no depression. No scandalous songs, never feverish anger, never extreme slogans. A woman at the piano for 20 years. For 20 years, the honest soul voice has been scratching bedroom doors, behind which not much is going on apart from the television.

And she succeeds, devil again, again.

Her new album “Keys” (coherent line of succession after the album “Alicia”) works like a warm milk and honey bath against the dandruff that has grown away from us in two years. So Keys puts candles on the edge of the tub, strokes her head and sings what she likes to sing about: Love, God, den fight. Most of the time you lose it, but: At least we try to make it.

She buys herself out of her first record deal with Columbia Records: artistic freedom

Admittedly, the consolation comes at a time when a “nice weekend” from the Penny cashier is the emotional high point of the day. But “Keys”, an album with which she says she “arrives at home”, aims precisely at the purr reflex. How does she do it? And: If the Alicia Keys concept still works on the piano – is there hope in this attention-kinky pop world?

Maybe you have to start at the very beginning, even if it’s not easy with an artist who was good from the start – and then just stayed good. 2001, Chicago, “Oprah Winfrey Show”. Everything glows purple-pink – the spotlight, Alicia Keys’ jacket collar and Oprah Winfrey’s eyeshadow. Keys says she has been writing music since she was 14 and, with lowered lids and a certainty as if it were a prayer, confesses: “I knew this was my way. I had to follow it.” Then she sits at the grand piano, rocking her head, which is braided with cornrows, emotionally while she plays Beethoven’s “Für Elise”. Not an incredibly difficult piece, but suitable for an Oprah Winfrey audience, who probably has no idea what the Suzuki method is supposed to be, with which Alicia Keys learned the piano for twelve years, as she tells on the show.

Only after Beethoven does she play: “Fallin ‘”.

A groundbreaking performance: iconic songs. More than three chords. She buys herself free from her first record deal with Columbia Records because she sees her artistic freedom restricted. She writes and produces her entire first album “Songs in A Minor” herself. She wants music for Elise, music for Justin, music for everyone, without having to reveal herself. Without hook fights on the cerebrum. But also without mentality. With all blue notes she stays true to pop.

Bob Dylan sings: “I wonder where in the world Alicia Keys could be / I even looked for her in Tennessee.”

In the show, “Fallin ‘” pops from the first second, the talk goddess rocks along, the audience applauds this clever but catchy R’n’B number in ecstasy. After the broadcast, the song jumps to the top of the chart. Alicia Keys goes from newcomer to celebrity.

On the plus side since then: 15 Grammys, more than 65 million records sold, a happy marriage. She is known as the “spokesperson of American pop”, as the “R’n’B queen”.

And now the fascination: Alicia Keys has managed to remain successful (and good!) Without a nostalgic curse. Initially a crop-top phenomenon in the 00s, she wrote loud pop numbers like “Girl on Fire” in the 10s. And despite echoing drums and full-down choruses, it always stayed a few millimeters from the Katy Perry Gorge and Miley Cyrus wrecking balls.

Above all, Keys always went back to the roots, the R’n’B and soul. To the music she used to raise her mother in New York’s working-class Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood. This succeeded in the largely insane feat of not repeating itself without reinventing itself. Alicia Keys is her own reference in the music market. She plays as a serious musician in the celebrity league of Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Barack Obama. Despite postmodernism. Despite a devastated world in 9999 problems. Despite the need to make statements and find new ideas.

Proofs? Please: Prince invited you to his home in Minnesota and gave permission to cover his song “How Come You Don’t Call Me”. Bob Dylan dedicated her “Thunder On The Mountain” with lines like: “I wonder where in the world Alicia Keys could be / I even looked for her in Tennessee.” No matter where it is, it is right. She writes songs against racism without shouting. Behind Beyoncé, the word “feminist” shines on the MTV Music Awards stage, Alicia Keys decides, clearly effective in the public eye, but without resentment, not to put on makeup. Until she decides to put on make-up again. “Joy is a form of resistance,” said the singer in the US election campaign. The singers, life, their colleagues and the music shine on Tiktok or Instagram.

How do you become like that? “Be clear, be beautiful, be genuine.”

So many positive vibes give a megastar who has their own soul care beauty line every reason to be skeptical. Actually.

The extent of the found Zen center soul salvation can now be seen in the latest episode of Palina Rojinski’s podcast “Podkinski” – Keys’ currently only interview in Germany. It’s unbelievable that after episodes with Ines Anioli or Christian Ulmen the New York megastar suddenly appears. What’s even more incredible is that Alica Keys reacts so ecstatically to every question from Rojinski, as if each question were pure poetry. At one point she screamed: “Oh my god, they told me I would love you. I love it here!” In three quarters of an hour, the exclamations “Wow, that’s so beautiful”, “So good”, “Oh my god, that’s so nice” are repeated around 150 times. As if the two of them had come out of the sauna, their brains still fresh from the pine needle infusion.

Actually, you now tend to listen to such flattery with crossed arms and raised eyebrows. Of course, the new album was created “effortless”, all without writing and meaning crises. She has been happy with her husband, rapper and producer Swizz Beatz for more than a decade, and knows the recipe for a functioning marriage (good times, similar interests, giving space). In addition to its existence as a phonogram, your album is a universe, everything is a bit transcendent anyway, “crazy energy” or a “portal” lurks everywhere, wherever.

How do you become like that? “Be clear, be beautiful, be genuine.” “Oh, that gives hope to so many people,” languished the hostess. At the end, each guest can ask a question, which Palina Rojinski answers with a look at her tarot cards. Briefly to classify the following: Clueso asked the cards whether he will always live in Erfurt. Ines Anioli, how she can finish writing her program. Christian Ulmen, whether he will one day be a grandfather. Alicia Keys wants to know: What do people need most from me now?

Perfect Recipe: Deep Gospel Truths About Scented Candles

For many others (Helene Fischer, arrest warrant, Christian Ulmen) this question would, if not fear, at least arouse the urgent suspicion of empty lifestyle ramblings. But, and that’s the point here, Alicia Keys doesn’t like the cynicism. Because somehow, well, she’s right. When she says you have to know what you don’t want. That the most important thing in life is to know yourself. Heaven, yes: what can you say about it?

Perhaps this constant flow is also related to the nonchalance that Keys retained from her certainly not so zen-peaceful childhood in New York’s working-class district of Hell’s Kitchen. Despite Jimmy Choo pumps: Reebok sneakers still look good on her.

Above all, however, her new album legitimizes even the most flat Buddha line. With “Keys” she proves a curiosity about music that has never disappeared. She doesn’t want to choose between street style and an intimate piano session. There is a so-called “Unlocked” version for every song. While the first part of the double album savored tricky jazz harmonies, piano runs, dragging blue notes, part two has more 90s New York, more beat and Lil Wayne. That almost always works, even if a few of the faster numbers sound like disco out of the tube. Part one in particular is masterful. Vinyl crackles, you light a scented candle, sway in baggy pants to the diamond-clear gospel truths that Alicia Keys belts out. Without a meta, without an intellectual branch. Wow, that’s so beautiful.