Alicia Keys - More Myself: A Journey

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This book is dedicated to the journey, and all the people who are walking with me on it past, present, and future. You have all helped me to become more myself and I am deeply grateful.

The moment in between what you once were, and who you are now becoming, is where the dance of life really takes place.

Barbara De Angelis, spiritual teacher

I am seven. My mom and I are side by side in the back seat of a yellow taxi, making our way up Eleventh Avenue in Manhattan on a dead-cold day in December. We hardly ever take cabs. Theyre a luxury for a single parent and part-time actress. But on this afternoon, maybe because Mom has just finished an audition near my school, PS 116 on East Thirty-third Street, or maybe because its so freezing we can see our breath, she picks me up. The cab inches crosstown before finally turning north onto a stretch of Eleventh Avenue dotted with peep shows, massage parlors, and crumbling tenements. We pull up to Forty-second Street, around the corner from our building. Something catches my eye.

Mommy? I ask, pointing. Ive climbed onto my knees on the seat and pressed my face, crowned with its usual frizz and my hair swept into box braids, right against the glass. Why are they dressed like that when its so cold?

Mom clasps my hand and pulls me back toward her while glancing out the window. There on the corner stand three women, each rubbing her hands together to stay warm. All are in brightly colored knit dresses with hemlines that end miles above their knees. One is wearing fishnet stockings that reveal flashes of her bare skin. Another has on black boots that extend up the full length of her thighs. None are wearing coats. As locals bundled up in puffy jackets scurry around them on the sidewalk, seeming oblivious to their presence but probably not, the womens eyes dart back and forth to the other side of the wide boulevard. They look like theyre waiting for someone.

Mommy, I ask again, how come theyre out there?

My mother sweeps her long auburn hair to one side, draws in a breath, and looks over at me. When people go through hard times, Ali, she says slowly, they often have to do things they dont want to do. Those women are just trying to survive.

I stare at my mother for a long moment, attempting to wrap my little-girl brain around what she has just told me. She doesnt explain what a sex worker is or exactly how one earns money. Im too young for that. She doesnt tell me that the women are controlled by pimps, street hustlers who force them to turn tricks in exchange for drugs or cash. I wouldnt have understood. What she does somehow convey is a truth I still carry with me: the women Ive spotted arent on that corner by choice, but by circumstance. Without another word, I slide down into the cracked leather seat and make a silent agreement with myself. I will never be in a situation like that. Half-clothed. Vulnerable. Powerless. Exposed.

I am eleven. I already know Ill one day be a singer. Ive known that in my gut since I was four. Even still, my agent has been rounding up all kinds of little jobs for me. One is to model bras and underwear for a department store catalog. I show up at the shoot, flat-chested and a little anxious, even with my mom at my side. Behind a dressing room curtain, I pull on the white padded bra and cotton panties. I then peer at myself, head to toe, in the full-length mirror, not sure how I feel about what Ive signed up for. Moments later, I smile awkwardly into the camera, glancing over at my mom on the side. Idont know why I was nervous, I think in an attempt to calm myself. This isnt that bad.

And then, a few weeks later, the catalog arrives. Here it is! Mom calls out, holding it open to the page Im on. I reach for the magazine and flop down with it on our couch. My heartbeat quickens as I study the photo. Until that moment, I havent quite realized that what happened in the privacy of a studio is now on full display for the whole worldmy world.

So, you mean, my friends are gonna see me like this?! I say. Mom, probably surprised at my reaction, doesnt respond. The picture is not at all racy, especially since my boobs are more like tangerines than grapefruits. Yet I still feel judged. Naked. Embarrassed. Exposed.

I am nineteen. In a few months, my first album will drop and my life will suddenly be divided into two distinct halves: all that came before Songs in A Minor, and all the miracles and challenges that followed. But I dont know that yet. As 2000 draws to a close, all I know is that Ive been booked to appear on a magazine cover, one of my first. In my business, publicity just comes with the job, particularly for a new artist whos excited to break in. This is my shot, I tell myself, a chance for my music to get noticed. The stylists, my manager, the team at the record labeleveryone is eager for this opportunity.

The photographer greets me with a firm handshake, and I immediately feel his vibestrong and a bit pushy. A stylist has chosen my outfits, among them a pair of jeans, a jacket, and a white button-up shirt. As I dress, the photographer somehow convinces my team that hell need to shoot me alone. When I emerge from the dressing room, theres just the two of us on set. Open up your shirt a little, he directs while firing off a flurry of camera snaps. My spirit is screaming that something is wrong, that this feels sleazy. But my protests, lodged in the back of my throat, cant make their way out. Pull the top of your jeans down a bit in the front, he urges. If I sayno, what doors will be closed to me? I swallow my misgivings, tuck my thumb between the denim and my skin, and obey.

That night at home, I cry harder than I ever have. This isnt about me showing some skin, which Ill do on my own terms, for my own purposes, in the coming years. Its about feeling manipulated. Its about being objectified. Its about a crop of streetwalkers on a corner in Hells Kitchen and a girl who once made a pact with herself.

What the hell is this? my manager, Jeff, asks me one afternoon a few months later. Hes holding up the magazine cover. I stare at the image and do not recognize the woman staring back at me: midriff bare, nipples covered by her arm extended across her chest, the slightest hint of pubic hair spilling over the top of her jeans. Everything about the photo is wrong, from the pose itself to the lighting that makes me look washed-out. I am beyond embarrassed, ashamed that Ive sold part of myself.

I now understand why the photographer wanted my team out of that room. A nineteen-year-old girl is more pliable than a set of her grown-ass managers. Had Jeff been in there, he wouldve voiced what I couldnt at the time: Hell no. Close that shirt. Take your hand off your tit. And youre not going to yank down your jeans. In fact, Jeff wouldve been over there pulling my shirt closed. The photographer clearly wanted a provocative image, but rather than disclosing that vision from the start, he led me into it.

On the day of the covers debut, I pass a newsstand where the magazine is on display. I almost throw up. I want to buy every copy on every stand around the world, just so no one will see me in a photo that does not represent who I am. I swear that Ill never again let someone rob me of my power. Its a promise I still work to keep.