April 27, 2026
Keys says there may be nonetheless an absence of feminine illustration within the music business.
Alicia Keys has created the soundtrack for ladies’s empowerment, and she or he walks the stroll for the women who make up a small proportion of the music business.
The 17-time Grammy Award-winning musician, philanthropist, artwork collector, and lady of many hats obtained candid in a latest interview, recalling how troublesome the music business may be towards girls, together with the “boys’ membership” nature of the enterprise.
“The music world turns into an excellent outdated boy community, and all of the unbelievable girls working as engineers and producers will not be given an open door,” she instructed The Occasions of London in an interview, in keeping with Selection. “Girls make up 2 p.c of the whole enterprise. I’m a producer, and right here we’re, doing a bunch of labor, killing it, so it’s stunning that the quantity is so small. Slightly than simply being pissed off about that, it was time to create alternatives.”
Because the co-founder of She Is the Music, a non-profit group launched alongside Common Music Publishing Group CEO Jody Gerson, engineer Ann Minicieli, and WME accomplice Samantha Kirby Yoh, Keys goals to improve the variety of girls in music—particularly songwriters, producers, and engineers—very significantly.
Keys recounted that songs like “A Lady’s Value,” “Lady On Hearth,” and “Superwoman” weren’t created with the intention of them turning into feminist anthems.
“I didn’t goal to provide you with feminist message songs, and most of them had been written as a result of I wasn’t feeling that robust, so I needed to give myself a pep speak to maintain going, however it’s a thread by my work,” she stated.
Her advocacy for the humanities extends far past music. Just lately, the “Giants” artwork exhibition, that includes items from the gathering she owns alongside her husband, Kasseem Dean, higher referred to as Swizz Beatz, opened on the Museum of Up to date Artwork in San Diego.
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