Alicia Keys Talks About Being A Mother, TV Music Competitions And More
Posted by Joseph Lee on 11.30.2012
Her new album is out Tuesday...
In an interview with Zap2It, Alicia Keys talked about being a mother and her new album Girl on Fire. She will release the album on Tuesday and then perform the title song two days later on The X Factor. It will be the first album since the 2010 birth of her son Egypt.
On being a mother: "It's definitely changed me. I started to be more productive. Before I think I wasted more time just cause I could. I came in [to the studio] really focused about what I wanted to do. Even the writing on this record is deeper, it's more intimate. It's at a place I probably couldn't have written two or three years ago because I didn't understand it as much. I think [motherhood has] opened me up to access a deeper emotion than I did before."
On her shorter haircut: "I've heard from a lot of new mothers that they cut their hair too. I thought I was kind of special and brave, but apparently it's a new mother thing. I had been talking about cutting my hair for awhile and figuring out in which way it would feel right. I put out a song called 'New Day' that's also on my album and I was just like, 'You know what, it's a new day, and I'm cutting this off.' So I did it! Now more than I ever do I find that having that hour or 45 minutes of me time -- running or getting my workout on -- it feels good and also gives me some time for myself, so I really enjoy it," Keys says about her workout regimen. "Even though it's hard and it hurts and I complain the whole time, at the end I'm like, 'This feels good.'"
On if she would join a TV singing competition: "I don't know, to be honest. I've never done it, so I don't know. These contestants, they've got a chance to showcase themselves. When I was first starting, if I had four really diverse and established people [like Spears, Simon Cowell, Demi Lovato and L.A. Reid] giving me pointers I would've liked that. I think there's something really great about that -- the knowledge you can share and give -- but I don't know. I'd be the nice one. They always have the mean one, the nice one and what's the third? The indifferent one? I'd be the constructively nice one."
