Alicia Keys believed she “had to conform to everybody’s expectations” when she first broke into the entertainment world.
The Grammy-award-winning singer felt as though the music business was an “alien universe” when she first started out.
Alicia, now 43, became famous in 2001 when she was just 19, with her album Songs in a Minor – and found it hard to navigate the industry.
“I always felt like on top of being a young girl just entering into the music business, exploring, being on television and performing under hot lights and sweating and just (being) in a whole new universe – it was like an alien universe,” she told People magazine. “I didn’t feel like myself. I felt like I had to conform to everybody’s expectation of what they thought I was or should be.”
She added, “And it really took quite a lot of discipline and a lot of time before I got to the place where I realized that I didn’t have to be this person, that I didn’t have to fulfil other people’s dreams of me. I could actually just be who I am.”
Recently, Alicia has embraced her natural side. In 2016 she decided to stop wearing makeup in public, which she did for several years.
She’s since said that this “rebellious moment” was about “how do you want to express yourself, and what space do you want to claim for yourself? And what boundaries do you want for yourself?”
Alicia recently performed alongside Usher at the Super Bowl halftime show.