Alicia Keys Will Never Stop Fighting

This year marks the latest evolution of Alicia Keys as an artist. With a memoir out, a new album, fighting for justice for Breonna Taylor, and supporting Black-owned businesses, she’s never had more to say

- David Levesley

Every Alicia Keys album always starts with a prelude. It’s a tribute to her classical training and often involves her toying with traditional piano arrangements that she then segues into the R&B-but-not-quite stylings that have made her one of the most successful artists in the world. Every album, from 2001’s Songs In A Minor to this year’s Alicia, follows this format. It’s a sign that Keys has always known the type of artist she wants to be, the type of album she wants to make: self-knowledge that those who witnessed her start her career in her teens have often attested to. Every intro is a promise of what’s yet to come, but on her new album it’s different: less an instrumental leitmotif and more a portent, here Alicia’s usual warm-up is a furious poem. ‘Such a nuisance trying to kill all the loose ends / Tell me how the truth became so elusive,’ she thunders in a multitude of different voices. She’s, literally, never had more to say.