Speaker 1: Family Secrets as a production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: Danny Shapiro and this is a very special bonus episode
Speaker 1: of Family Secrets. I love every single one of my
Speaker 1: guests on Family Secrets, but I have to say this
Speaker 1: particular guest and conversation blew me away. I learned so
Speaker 1: much from to get ready for it, the extraordinary, brilliantly gifted,
Speaker 1: strong and powerful human being, Alicia Keys. Alicia, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining me on Family Secrets. I'm just
Speaker 1: honored and delighted to have you on as a as
Speaker 1: a special guest. I couldn't be more excited too. I'm
Speaker 1: very happy to speak to you. So I started this
Speaker 1: podcast after having discovered my own family secrets and after
Speaker 1: a lifetime of writing about them without knowing why. And
Speaker 1: I realized how much we hide from ourselves and what
Speaker 1: liberation can happen when we speak to our deepest truth.
Speaker 1: And your journey, which you tell so beautifully in your
Speaker 1: new book More Myself, seems to explore so clearly this
Speaker 1: path towards deeper knowing, which is of course a lifetime's work,
Speaker 1: and it kept on striking me as I was reading
Speaker 1: your book that it's a spiritual journey that you take
Speaker 1: us on. Would you agree with that? M wow, Um,
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely, because I think it's the deepest uncovering, finding
Speaker 1: your way to yourself and your truth and and that
Speaker 1: is a spiritual process. That's like an opening and revelation,
Speaker 1: a searching of seeking um a rawness. So yeah, I do.
Speaker 1: And I think even even more so the confidence to
Speaker 1: try to see yourself and to be brave enough to
Speaker 1: look at it and hear yourself and all those things
Speaker 1: that I personally have found, um is part of what
Speaker 1: I'm learning more and more and demanding of myself. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that idea of being a spiritual journey for sure.
Speaker 1: Given the moment that we're having this conversation, there's a
Speaker 1: really brief passage in your book that I just want
Speaker 1: to read. It's fairly early on, and you're right, nothing
Speaker 1: but uncertainty is certain circumstances come together only to fall
Speaker 1: apart moments or months later, and then in a flash,
Speaker 1: we must rise up and regain our footing. In the
Speaker 1: rear view mirror, I now see so clearly what escaped me.
Speaker 1: Then It's not that the ground underneath me was suddenly shifting.
Speaker 1: It's that it's never ill. That's part of the work
Speaker 1: of my journey getting comfortable with life's groundlessness. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is so true. It's wild when we have our own
Speaker 1: words kind of like spoken back to us, it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right, it is so true. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: about that so much, even in the context of as
Speaker 1: as we are all discovering who we are and figuring
Speaker 1: out who we are and finding you know, our base
Speaker 1: and our truths and and and all of these things,
Speaker 1: and especially me as I'm discovering that it's always shifting
Speaker 1: and it's always kind of coming back to me UM,
Speaker 1: demanding to know if I actually learned the lesson or
Speaker 1: if I can just recited well. And that's a really
Speaker 1: big one because a lot of times I find that
Speaker 1: I'll be tested, and we'll all be tested in these
Speaker 1: small ways, UM, especially tested about will I choose myself,
Speaker 1: Will I be willing to say more nose, Will I
Speaker 1: be willing to understand and and really listen to myself
Speaker 1: internally and and and be comfortable with what I think
Speaker 1: as opposed to looking for the validation from the outside
Speaker 1: world or from people I trust, even um and and
Speaker 1: and these tests they keep coming back to me and
Speaker 1: coming back to me. And sometimes you know, Danny, I
Speaker 1: I don't do that well, and I'm like, damn, there,
Speaker 1: I did it again. I already know this. Why am
Speaker 1: I finding myself in this place? And sometimes I really
Speaker 1: do get it and I say, no, that's not what
Speaker 1: I need to do right now. And I'm very strong
Speaker 1: and clear and it's crystal, and I'm so proud because
Speaker 1: I didn't have to second gather doubt or whatever. But
Speaker 1: it is definitely always the shift. It's always shifting. I
Speaker 1: think we're always learning something new. We're always being asked
Speaker 1: to remember what we already know um and and do
Speaker 1: it some more. Uh So it is for sure, that
Speaker 1: is so true. Thanks for reading that. I think your
Speaker 1: your book speaks to that so beautifully because no one
Speaker 1: of the things that struck me as I was reading it,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, you know, I would be immersed in
Speaker 1: these life lessons whether this book was written by Alicia
Speaker 1: Keys or not. You know, like it wasn't you. You
Speaker 1: you write at one point, fame for the sake of
Speaker 1: fame has never been the dream. But spreading light is
Speaker 1: a pleasure I'll always live for. And that's what your
Speaker 1: story feels like to me, it's and it also strikes
Speaker 1: me that that's part of what's allowed you to become
Speaker 1: you again and again and again over the course of
Speaker 1: your life thus far, is that spreading light is what
Speaker 1: keeps us honest and open and moving out of ourselves
Speaker 1: and into the deepest parts of ourselves but not into
Speaker 1: like what the world is looking for are from us?
Speaker 1: And you know, you you cover the span of your
Speaker 1: life pretty much from your childhood growing up in New
Speaker 1: York City to pretty close to the present. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that it seems like it's about to
Speaker 1: me is when you became hugely famous really young, and
Speaker 1: there's this really sweet moment where you know, you're you're
Speaker 1: twenty years old and you've just been on Oprah and
Speaker 1: you've played on Oprah's you know, sort of massive stage,
Speaker 1: and you fly home and somebody recognizes you in the
Speaker 1: airport and you think, do I know you? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: Like I'm actually just being recognized. And then you're back
Speaker 1: in your neighborhood and you're in your mom's neighborhood and
Speaker 1: you're you're you're walking around and you write something like
Speaker 1: I was probably out like going to the to the
Speaker 1: fake I d place because I wasn't twenty one yet.
Speaker 1: And it's like so often people who are told who
Speaker 1: they are by the world, or that they're great, that
Speaker 1: they have greatness, or that they have a great gift
Speaker 1: when they're that young can't handle it, you know, can't
Speaker 1: lose themselves or never have a chance to find themselves.
Speaker 1: And yours is a story of finding yourself over and
Speaker 1: over again. And I'm just wondering, how what do you
Speaker 1: think gave you the inner compass to do that, to
Speaker 1: just keep your feet on the ground. Wow, Oh man,
Speaker 1: you know there's so many parts of that that that
Speaker 1: that just brought up for me. Um, even the part
Speaker 1: where it was you know, over has been such a
Speaker 1: beautiful mentor to so many of us in the world
Speaker 1: because we you know, even before I knew her personally,
Speaker 1: she was a you know, somebody that I that I
Speaker 1: looked up to and that I thought such a powerful
Speaker 1: force from good. And that was the first person that
Speaker 1: I actually recognized. I remember being so clear seeing her
Speaker 1: and realizing that you could not only be in a
Speaker 1: extremely powerful business person, but also on a side of good.
Speaker 1: And I think so many times we witnessed people who
Speaker 1: are very, very successful. Um, and I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like kind of by any means necessary cutthroat. You know,
Speaker 1: they'll just like do whatever they have to do to
Speaker 1: follow the dollar. The dollar is king, and and and
Speaker 1: obviously that doesn't lead us in any good place, which
Speaker 1: is you know, I think a lot of what we're
Speaker 1: flowing now as a as a global family just recognizing, um,
Speaker 1: the different unfairnesses that we're seeing all around us, and
Speaker 1: so a lot of that is all is always led
Speaker 1: by greed. So so I think that was such a
Speaker 1: powerful recognition for me and so to be able to
Speaker 1: meet her and perform on her show, and for her
Speaker 1: to embrace my song, and and then to come back
Speaker 1: to my neighborhood and come back on the plane, and
Speaker 1: for people to actually be recognizing me and and have
Speaker 1: been touched by that moment. I remember I actually distinctly
Speaker 1: not only do that film them a great pride, of course,
Speaker 1: an excitement because whoa who would have ever imagined and
Speaker 1: the these things that you dream about and when they
Speaker 1: start to come to fruition, you can't believe it. But
Speaker 1: I also remember becoming very self conscious, very self conscious,
Speaker 1: and almost um to the place where I always wanted
Speaker 1: to hide, And I do believe that that's the beginning
Speaker 1: of some of the ways that I started to kind
Speaker 1: of tucked myself away and and put on what I've
Speaker 1: definitely referred to as an armor. And that's saying that
Speaker 1: we just kind of that wall, that feel that we
Speaker 1: put on so that we can get through the day
Speaker 1: and and kind of not exposed to much of ourselves personally,
Speaker 1: and and to be able to just kind of handle everything.
Speaker 1: And and I know that for a lot of my life,
Speaker 1: I've been unwinding that armor, that steel, that wall. Um
Speaker 1: that I think was a direct result of that kind
Speaker 1: of immediate attention that I just I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to handle it, and I it was just a girl
Speaker 1: from Hell's Kitchen and Harlem, and man, I didn't know
Speaker 1: what to do with is so um. So I think
Speaker 1: that in a way that it is something that I've
Speaker 1: also been unwinding for myself. But I think the way
Speaker 1: I was able to keep my feet some you know,
Speaker 1: on the ground through it all also was because of
Speaker 1: this almost desire to stay normal whatever, to be a
Speaker 1: normal human being who could actually you know, just it's
Speaker 1: who I've always been, who have always been I didn't
Speaker 1: want that to be taken away from me. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to not recognize myself. I was I think I
Speaker 1: was very afraid of not being able to recognize myself,
Speaker 1: to the point where I stifled my growth in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways because I just wanted to recognize the
Speaker 1: person I've always known. But that's impossible because they're growing,
Speaker 1: and we have to grow, and we should allow ourselves
Speaker 1: to grow, and we shouldn't meet the new parts of ourselves.
Speaker 1: And that's only something that I recognize now, many years later. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's so amazing how all these things kind of
Speaker 1: happened at one time and later you kind of see
Speaker 1: what it's all for. And I think the real reason
Speaker 1: I was able to be grounded is because my mother
Speaker 1: is so such a little firecracker, Like she is so phenomenal,
Speaker 1: and she's always just she raised me a single mother,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's a certain and you know, there
Speaker 1: was just a certain humbleness that was had to be
Speaker 1: just because that's the way that we live in the
Speaker 1: circumstances we were in. And she was always big on like, well,
Speaker 1: how do you think that makes somebody else feel? And
Speaker 1: you know, would you want to be treated like that,
Speaker 1: and she would always give me these big, big ideas,
Speaker 1: these big lessons, these golden rules, these things that would
Speaker 1: stuck stuck with me a lot, And I think that
Speaker 1: was how I was able to stay on the ground
Speaker 1: and stay very grounded because of her guidance in the
Speaker 1: way that she was very honest in law and even
Speaker 1: when things started going she you know, she couldn't be
Speaker 1: less impressed. You wanted to do that. People were taking
Speaker 1: advantage of me, you know, because I was a kid
Speaker 1: of sixteen seventeen, you know, so so um and I
Speaker 1: get it. So it's it's I think she's a big
Speaker 1: part of how I was able to stay in that
Speaker 1: grounded space. We'll be back in a moment with more
Speaker 1: family secrets. The part of your book it maybe actually
Speaker 1: get a little cheery. Your wise Nana, your father's mother,
Speaker 1: and the way that you describe her UM actually really
Speaker 1: reminded me. I've in my work, I've written a lot
Speaker 1: about an elderly aunt of mine, my aunt Shirley, who's
Speaker 1: now and the wisdom like the the the kind of pure,
Speaker 1: unadulterated wisdom just filter down to you by your grandmother
Speaker 1: who Um, who loved you so much and who you loved.
Speaker 1: And we don't need a lot of people like that
Speaker 1: in our lives, but we need, you know, one or
Speaker 1: two if we're lucky, that give us that sense of
Speaker 1: um And would you would you say that that Nana
Speaker 1: also was part of that grounding for you? Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: so much. You know. One of my favorite things people
Speaker 1: tell me is that I'm so much like my Nanna.
Speaker 1: And when people tell me that, like that our spirits
Speaker 1: are similar and that we even look similarly, it's the biggest,
Speaker 1: biggest compliment that I can ever be given, because to me,
Speaker 1: she was everything, just everything. She just invited, you know,
Speaker 1: she just embodied such a kindness, such a thoughtfulness, such
Speaker 1: a spirit of soul. Is not a person that didn't
Speaker 1: know her the way that she walked in alone, she
Speaker 1: filled it. She filled the whole room that she she
Speaker 1: every kid on the street team, every kid at the school.
Speaker 1: She was you know, she was that involved. You know,
Speaker 1: I remember all the time coming in being a bed
Speaker 1: or her. The kitchen's table was filled with cards that
Speaker 1: she was sending card this that she was sending to
Speaker 1: people to remember an event, to remember an occasion, to
Speaker 1: tell them that she loved them, Like these things that
Speaker 1: she would just do was just you know, that spirit
Speaker 1: that was so president and so thoughtful and and so
Speaker 1: to me. She I learned so much from her. I
Speaker 1: just that strength that she had in a way that
Speaker 1: she was like a leader in those ways, and and
Speaker 1: and such a giver, you know, like a lover. So um, definitely,
Speaker 1: I think she also came to the ground in this
Speaker 1: especially that time which I don't even know, No, I
Speaker 1: don't even think I wrote this in the book. When
Speaker 1: I Um, she told me we were going to like
Speaker 1: church or something, and she was bringing me somewhere special.
Speaker 1: She was bringing me, and she put me in it's
Speaker 1: really pretty dressed and she told me, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm going outside. She's like, do not get distress dirty.
Speaker 1: And I was playing with my friends and we were
Speaker 1: jumping over a thing and I didn't lize that like
Speaker 1: the the hose had prayed the dirt and the dirt slippery.
Speaker 1: And when I jumped over the thing we were jumping over,
Speaker 1: I slipped in my shoes and my white dress and
Speaker 1: I found them mud and exactly what she told me
Speaker 1: not to do happen. And I went back in the
Speaker 1: house and I know she was so upset at me.
Speaker 1: She was so upset at me because she specifically told
Speaker 1: me don't get dirty, and she just looked at me,
Speaker 1: and that look crushed me harder then if she yelled
Speaker 1: and screamed and you know, flapped the back of my hand.
Speaker 1: It crushed me so hard to disappoint her, you know,
Speaker 1: more than any type of physical anything that she could
Speaker 1: have done. And again, such a testament to that shrink
Speaker 1: to that, like, you know what what that does to you,
Speaker 1: that that that beautiful poise that she she had well
Speaker 1: and definitely locked of life lessons that she gave me too.
Speaker 1: So she was another big part of my ground and
Speaker 1: a very important woman in my life that I think
Speaker 1: showed me what a woman looks like. I love that
Speaker 1: you said that people you know say to you that
Speaker 1: that you you remind them of of your Nana. Because
Speaker 1: one of the things that it felt like to me
Speaker 1: was that the lessons, those life lessons that she transmitted
Speaker 1: to you, um, you're transmitting in in in your through
Speaker 1: your journey and in your story. Um. She you know,
Speaker 1: there was a lot there about forgiveness and and there
Speaker 1: are just these places where you, um, you really talk
Speaker 1: to us. You know, you talked to the reader um
Speaker 1: about these kind of universal values of um. You know
Speaker 1: what it is to forgive, and she really urges you
Speaker 1: to do that. You know that there there are more
Speaker 1: important things, more important things than holding onto an old
Speaker 1: story doesn't change the story. It just changes you and
Speaker 1: hardens your heart. And it seems like so much of
Speaker 1: the way that your growth has happened is about opening
Speaker 1: your heart, not closing it, opening your palms not clenching them.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmmmmmmm No, yes, see, totally. And and as she
Speaker 1: you know, I thought that was it's so right, and
Speaker 1: actually became you know, she passed away. She had cancer,
Speaker 1: and as she became more sick, I remember, and I
Speaker 1: spoke about this, and I'm sure we've all felt like
Speaker 1: this in some way or another, but I remember being
Speaker 1: quite upset that I didn't feel like I saw the
Speaker 1: amount of people that I know that she wrote all
Speaker 1: those letters and spent all this all this time and
Speaker 1: energy and efforts with and and I you know, I
Speaker 1: remember I felt a little bit frustrated, like where are they?
Speaker 1: Where are they? And you know, even Craig, my father,
Speaker 1: who was feeling now that I can be more empathetic
Speaker 1: and understanding about how difficult you know, seeing your mother,
Speaker 1: you know, the approaching a transition, you know, at death.
Speaker 1: I didn't understand even he. I was like, where is he?
Speaker 1: And I know now that that was so hard for
Speaker 1: him to come to terms with. Um. You know, I've
Speaker 1: learned a lot more grace and a lot more empathy
Speaker 1: in the you know, over time and um. But she
Speaker 1: she had this these thoughts and she knew already that,
Speaker 1: you know, she was. She was so clear that you
Speaker 1: you can't change people, You can't make people who you
Speaker 1: want them to be. And I said, what are you
Speaker 1: talking about? You gotta tell people what you think, and
Speaker 1: how do they know if you don't tell them? And
Speaker 1: you gotta you know, it's all and she's like, you
Speaker 1: you can't. It's spending so much energy trying to do
Speaker 1: something that may just disappoint you. And that's something I
Speaker 1: never learned for a long time. And again, not to
Speaker 1: get it confused. I do believe that you should express
Speaker 1: your truth. And I don't think that just because you
Speaker 1: may get disappointed means you should not express your truth
Speaker 1: or should not do something that you deeply know you
Speaker 1: need to. So I don't want it to get my construed.
Speaker 1: But um, but there was a knowing like this wise
Speaker 1: wisdom and knowing that people are as they are, and
Speaker 1: if you can actually accept that, then you can decide
Speaker 1: what to do with it. You can decide, you know what,
Speaker 1: I that person is that way and I choose to
Speaker 1: not interface with that person as much, or that person
Speaker 1: is that way, and I'm okay with that because I
Speaker 1: know they're like that, and I'm I can accept that.
Speaker 1: Whatever you're gonna do with it, at least you can
Speaker 1: choose what you want to do with it, as opposed
Speaker 1: to you know, emotions taking you everywhere, you know, because
Speaker 1: you want somebody to do what you want them to do.
Speaker 1: So there's been so amazing. She still feed me all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, I totally can imagine. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: I'd love to know a little bit about what was
Speaker 1: the spark, like, what was the impetus? Um, it's not
Speaker 1: like you don't have enough going on. What why did
Speaker 1: you decide to share this journey in this way? And
Speaker 1: I mean, at one point I think you compared it
Speaker 1: to you know, it's creating an album takes a lot
Speaker 1: of time and a lot of care and a lot
Speaker 1: of thought about what belongs with what you know, which
Speaker 1: is similar I think too writing a book book? What
Speaker 1: made you I want to do it? Now? You know,
Speaker 1: it's been a as you know, it's been a little
Speaker 1: while since I actually had the thought to do it
Speaker 1: has It takes on quite some time, right, far more
Speaker 1: time than I possibly ever expected. So at the time
Speaker 1: when I was first considering this idea, UM, it was
Speaker 1: really right around the album that I put out called
Speaker 1: Here and Here was a really this is the album
Speaker 1: before the one that I'm putting out UM next, which
Speaker 1: is called Alicia. But here Um was really a transformational
Speaker 1: time for me, and it completely made me look at
Speaker 1: myself in a way I never had before. And it
Speaker 1: made me look at um the world in a way
Speaker 1: that I never had before too. In regards to our
Speaker 1: learned behaviors and our you know, the things that we
Speaker 1: pick up from our parents, from the television, from all
Speaker 1: of the all of the all the places that we
Speaker 1: walk from the day that we're born. We start to
Speaker 1: receive this information as narrative that you know, you were
Speaker 1: talking about this a little bit ago, this story that
Speaker 1: we create for ourselves and that we buy into. And
Speaker 1: I've been through and call our truths and all these things,
Speaker 1: and I was really starting to awaken to that and
Speaker 1: understand that I wanted to redefine what that was for me,
Speaker 1: and I was I realized that so many choices that
Speaker 1: I was making, so many things I was doing, was
Speaker 1: based off of um, you know me, kind of buying
Speaker 1: into this ideal of many different things of what beauty
Speaker 1: is of um, what success is of you know how,
Speaker 1: and if it wasn't, if it's important or not to
Speaker 1: be liked by many people, to please. For all these
Speaker 1: ideas and things of who I was that I just
Speaker 1: was starting to really challenge and I started to challenge
Speaker 1: it through music, and I started to challenge it. Actually
Speaker 1: remember very distinctly, and I wrote about this that I
Speaker 1: wrote a list of ships that I was sick of
Speaker 1: and the first time I ever wrote a list like that.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you've ever written a list
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, I think I think I need to
Speaker 1: right away. You need to write this list. It was
Speaker 1: so crazy because I think so much of our lives
Speaker 1: we spend being so damn accommodating and so extra thoughtful.
Speaker 1: We don't want to stay the wrong thing or do
Speaker 1: the wrong thing. And so we keep our lists of
Speaker 1: things that might make us so angry to ourselves, because
Speaker 1: God forbid we make anybody angry, or we dissens in
Speaker 1: our opinions or whatever. And so I was that me.
Speaker 1: I was that the person I fight against being all
Speaker 1: the time. And so and so I wrote this list
Speaker 1: and it really started to clarify these feelings that I
Speaker 1: had ignite, uh, just a word to put through it.
Speaker 1: And I took that list and I translated it into
Speaker 1: these songs that ended up becoming the Here album, which
Speaker 1: is one of my all time favorite albums that I
Speaker 1: ever did, because it was the first that I didn't compromise.
Speaker 1: I didn't compromise my message. I didn't try to make
Speaker 1: a bunch of songs that I was going to be commercial,
Speaker 1: you know, radio friendly. I just wrote what I needed
Speaker 1: to write. And it was such a liberation process, and
Speaker 1: I found myself on my knees in the majority of
Speaker 1: the time just giving thanks to even the ease from
Speaker 1: which it came, because it was just so clear. So
Speaker 1: so I think that that that process was what started
Speaker 1: me to find more of who I actually am and
Speaker 1: who I want to be, and how do I how
Speaker 1: do I express that and how do I start to
Speaker 1: define that for myself and break these um these oppressions
Speaker 1: that kind of live over us that we you know,
Speaker 1: don't even realize, stopping us from so much. And once
Speaker 1: I started uncover that, that was when I think people
Speaker 1: really saw it. People started to really take notice, and
Speaker 1: and and that was when I realized that I had
Speaker 1: something to share like this, because I could see the
Speaker 1: evolution from that little girl um in health kitchen and
Speaker 1: Harlem to this young woman who really started to make
Speaker 1: my own definitions of myself. So so that's where I said,
Speaker 1: you know what I before this, I would have never
Speaker 1: considered in a book. I mean, who wants to do that?
Speaker 1: And we go to exposing all of your vulnerable places
Speaker 1: and you know those things and everything, like, who wants
Speaker 1: to do that? That sounds that sounds crazy. But in
Speaker 1: this with this new recognition, I knew I did want
Speaker 1: to do it because I knew that it was something
Speaker 1: that we were all trying to figure out. I hope
Speaker 1: you'll come back tomorrow from part two of my conversation
Speaker 1: with Alicia. For more podcasts for my heart radio, visit
Speaker 1: the i Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.