Alicia Keys Talks Black Lives Matter, Blackness, Acne And More

Alicia Keys talks about struggling with her image, acne, Black Lives Matter, and more.

Alicia Keys has been in the music game for years, and her brand as an artist has greatly expanded to other areas. In a new cover shoot for Glamour’s upcoming issue, the musician talks about her own personal struggles and how she’s learned to love her flaws. The first thing she discussed was her commitment to helping Black American businesses. The artist has launched a $1 billion endowment fund to support Black American businesses and communities in partnership with the NFL, Glamour writer Ateh Jewel writes. “As an artist, I’m always thinking about how I can use my platform to further racial equality,” she says. “Our goal is to empower Black America. 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,” she continues, with palpable anger.

“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. And at this point, I just think that it’s so deeply woven into the fabric. It’s not OK.” Keys says today she is all about positively influencing the next generation. “Alicia 2020 is super tuned-in,” she says. “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 remold, not only myself but everything around me and the world as we need it. So, I’m here to be of service, man.”

The singer-songwriter then touched on her decision to no longer depend on makeup to find her beauty. “Make-up was a big thing for me; I had been wearing it since I was, like, 16 years old,” she says. “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. And I realized I became addicted to it; I didn’t feel comfortable without it.”

Keys expresses her hair journey, and it connects her to her Blackness. “Hair is such a gorgeous expression of our individuality and deserves to be respected,” she says. “I’ve always been proud of wearing braids, and I love learning about the power of hair. I’ve always felt royal when I wear braids. There’s something so beautiful about the Blackness of it, about my African ancestry that I just feel truly connected to,” she said. “I read a book once that was our story [and history] through hair and through braids, and I learned how in each tribe, your position was actually told through the style in which you wore your hair, and we should accept the uniqueness of it. There’s definitely a lot of freaking messed-up hair culture that exists.”

After sharing her venture to create natural skincare products, she opened up about dealing with acne issues. “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, [as] I’ve always wanted to create something [like this] because I wanted something that would work for me when I was having difficult times; that would make me feel great and that was also good for me.”

Lastly, she talks about her time with her family during quarantine and how she feels as a Black mother today. “Most importantly, we’ve been healthy and safe,” she says. “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 kids] were in that space and I was able to help to participate in that. 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!’”

Keys says she has a lot of conversations about race with her sons. “We have a lot of conversations with our 13-year-old: [such as] 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. You’re a kid. You’re out, and you’re just in your world. What the hell? This whole idea of anti-racism is a really powerful statement. It is a really important conversation because we were never talking about that [before], not even five years ago. Now is definitely time to question everything and reformulate.”

She continues: “I’m an eternal optimist,” she says. “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.” Amen to that, Alicia.