Alicia Keys

Until we’re in those rooms as equally as men are, it can’t shift.

I want to keep redefining my work and trying new things. I want my music to be able to fit into any category. I want it to float wherever my heart goes. My music is heart music; giving it any other description is dangerous.

I want my sons to grow up in a world where they’d never think boys are better than girls or that black is better than white.

I feel like it’s by design that I’m raising boys, like there’s a reason. I don’t like my sons watching Snow White. It’s totally misogynistic

We all have our challenges, issues, things that we’re working through and insecurity is there because nobody is perfect no matter who you are. It’s that imperfection that makes you so dope.

We think – or maybe we’re shown – that the only way to express ourselves is through that very sexy energy. I think there’s more than that which shows our power. For me, I sometimes feel the most sexy when I’m totally covered head to toe.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don’t worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made ‘Three O’ Clock Blues’, they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I’m trying to satisfy.

Ideologies separate us. Art brings us together.

Jazz stands for freedom.

Find the best teachers, listen to the finest playing and try to emulate that. Be true to the music.

Instrumental music is increasingly marginalized.

I want to keep redefining my work and trying new things. I want my music to be able to fit into any category. I want it to float wherever my heart goes. My music is heart music; giving it any other description is dangerous.

Jazz is a complete lifestyle, something that you feel, something that you live.

I think we musicians are emissaries. Every time we go before the public, we’re there to make converts.

When we were at the Apollo, Holiday was a block away. I asked her for her autograph.

The other day I came across a recording I made of a night at my apartment when I was living with Kris Kristofferson. Bob Dylan had been around earlier and we were all passing around the guitar. Whenever it came to my turn I would run into the kitchen and say I’d left the coffee on the stove or something. Shyness. Scared to perform.

I’ve studied all my musical life, but learning is only good if you do something constructive with it.

It made no sense to ignore them and to continue writing as if they did not exist. I felt that it was worth the effort to see if I couldn’t say what I had to say in the simplest possible terms.

Get around, be on the scene, play it clean, be seen, be keen and be over eighteen.

Playing ‘bop’ is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.

Music happens to be an art form that transcends language.