But when Keys describes the line as a reflection of her own personal evolution, you’re inclined to believe her. With Keys Soulcare, Keys is following the now well-trod path from celebrity mom to lifestyle mogul. Perhaps it was only a matter of time until she bottled that particular magic.
In recent years, as she has pared down her beauty look, often opting for a bare, gleaming face over the heavy make-up typically required of entertainers, it’s become impossible to talk about Alicia Keys without mentioning her glow. Keys radiates reverence and humility, but she is also just radiant. And that magic is something I deeply respect.”
But, whatever is gonna happen is gonna happen. I never know exactly how it’s going to happen. “It's still all magic to me, though,” Keys says, looking back. that magic is something I deeply respect. Over the last two decades, it feels as if we’ve watched Keys not only come of age but come home. There’s an aura of tranquil satisfaction to the 40-year-old performer, who is also the grateful mother of a blended family that includes her own two sons, Egypt, 10, and Genesis, 6, who she shares with her husband, record producer Swizz Beats. Since that night at the Sultan Room, she has published her first memoir, More Myself: A Journey, and last fall she dropped her seventh studio album, Alicia. It’s been a prolific couple of years for Keys. It’s also when her Keys Soulcare beauty and lifestyle brand will launch three new products. Early June marks the 20th anniversary of her debut album, Songs in A Minor. Self-control is difficult when you are suddenly face to face with Alicia Keys: the pianist, songwriter, composer and producer the philanthropist and businesswoman the artist. I promise myself I won’t scream when her face appears on-screen, but I do anyway. “I just felt totally transported by that show. “Oh my gosh, I felt the exact same way,” Keys recalls now, in the spring of 2021, when I mention that she was one of the last people I saw in concert before the world shut down more than a year ago. She takes to the “keys” that became her stage name, looks at us all for a second, and starts to play. The backlit stage turns red, the spotlights purple - root and crown chakra colored. She looks relaxed, in her pocket, wearing a red, military-style beret, bootcut jeans, and a cut-off Toto “Africa” T-shirt. She breaks pace occasionally to sing the first verse alongside audience members. It’s cramped, but Keys two-steps through the crowd, making it work. The band plays “I Need You,” off of Keys’ 2007 album As I Am, and she begins to harmonize. Janelle Monáe and her Wondaland crew occupy a big black booth in the back left corner behind me stands Kamasi Washington’s guitarist. The room is mostly press, session musicians, and music aficionados. The event is a secret show for Afropunk 2019, rumored to be a night with Alicia and friends the audience is expectant, and the house is packed. There’s no backstage - the late-night lounge is tucked in the back of a Turkish restaurant in Brooklyn - so she is essentially in the hallway, right next to the quilted vinyl door to the restaurant’s kitchen, only partly concealed by the DJ booth. at the Sultan Room, and Alicia Keys is grooving under the exit sign.