Alicia Keys’s New York Musical Goes on National Tour

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1:36The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Adam Howard sitting in today for David Remnick. New York, how you feeling tonight? There's no doubt the unofficial anthem of New York City is Empire State of Mind, the Jay-Z song with that unforgettable hook sung by Alicia Keys. So it was only fitting that when New York celebrated the Knicks with a triumphant parade, Alicia Keys took the stage at City Hall.

2:13You could see Knicks captain Jalen Brunson and New York City mayor Zoran Mamdani grooving along in the background.

2:23Concrete jungle where dreams are made of There's nothing you can't do It was a classic New York moment for an artist who is herself classic New York. Alicia Keys' musical, Hell's Kitchen, uses her songs to tell a story about a teenager growing up in Manhattan right near Times Square. It won two Tony Awards, including Best Actress in a Musical for Malia Joy Moon in her first appearance on Broadway. Alicia Keys talked with David Remnick when the show was still in previews in 2024. We're recording and he said that the level looks fantastic. It's going to be the most phenomenal level you ever had.

3:06Hell's Kitchen just started a national tour, starting in Las Vegas and going all over the country. Here's David Remnick with Alicia Keys. Can you pin down how long it's been in the making in your mind from first conception to right now, delivering the baby? I'm going for 13 years because I know it was before my first son was born. And then I know that Chris and I, the book writer, Chris Diaz, we talk often about that even when Egypt was very, very little, like just born, we were talking through the concepts and how we want to develop the characters and all of these things. And what was the original idea?

3:48What was the original impetus to do that? You had to have a huge career as a singer, as a songwriter, as a performer. And this is something entirely different, even though I know you love musicals in general. But for you to do this on an autobiographical basis, to make your life the centerpiece of this work, how did that begin? Well, first, I do want to say that this isn't autobiographical. I think that's important to say because I think a lot of people think autobiographical and they think quite literal, like every single piece. But it's definitely based on the experiences that I had growing up in New York.

4:30And so in that way, it's very, very real. It's very authentic. It's very genuine. And so that was a bit of the impetus of like, why is this important to me and why I felt motivated and eager to create something that really reflected the level of diversity that I've been blessed to grow up with. And for also it to be set in Manhattan Plaza, which is the building that I grew up in and is a quite unique building because it's a subsidized rent controlled living for artists who, as we know, oftentimes there's months they go without work or there's times when you have more work. And, you know, it's a fluctuating lifestyle.

5:08And my mother would have never been able to raise me in the city if we hadn't lived there. Did you find the three, the four minute record, the song form limiting in some way and you wanted to break out of it and do something larger on the screen? Did you see things on stage that you thought, oh, I like this form. This could really fit for me. This could work for something called Hell's Kitchen and based at least on my own story. I love songwriting and it's such a beautiful way to capture a moment and emotion, a special feeling. But I do also love performance. And my mother, she was born in Toledo, Ohio.

5:50She's the quintessential New York story, I like to say. She was born in Toledo, Ohio and moved to New York City to follow her dreams of dancing and acting. She went to NYU and that was how she got here. That was why I was born here. That's the reason why. La la la. So I think that because of that and because of her love of acting and her love of theater specifically, I was really introduced to the theater world from a very young age. You know, I remember we would stand on the like lower price ticket line, the TKS line, and everybody be there and you get your tickets and you go to the show. And I was able to really see different worlds, different creative experiences from a young age.

6:30And like I'll never forget seeing Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Funk. That was the first time I felt, whoa, one, I see myself up there or I feel rhythm, I feel dance, I feel power, I feel street, I feel, you know, these different New York experiences. And so I was very attracted to that. And so now as I look back at it, it's so thrilling to be able to merge two worlds together, this kind of contemporary music world with this musical theater world. Talk to me about the neighborhood. The show is called Hell's Kitchen. And, of course, it's cheek by jowl with what we think of in our imagination and in reality of the great white way, Broadway.

7:08Right. Exactly. Exactly. So talk to me about that side-by-sideness that you grew up with. You grew up in the middle of. You're growing up in Manhattan Plaza in Hell's Kitchen. What was the Hell's Kitchen of your childhood and adolescence, and how did it coexist with this street of dreams, this Broadway that you were so taken with, and that becomes the subject also of your show? You're so right. And And, you know, Hell's Kitchen when I was growing up was literally perfectly described in that name. Like, you know, and those who lived or walked the streets of Hell's Kitchen, I always like to say that it was the place of the have-nots.

7:52Like it was the place where everyone who kind of didn't belong anywhere accumulated. prostitutes, drug dealers, pimps, you know, X-rated theaters, you know, all kinds of grimy, Hell's Kitchen-esque vibe was all up in there. And so I think that in a lot of ways, being so close to that reality all the time, it really hardened me. It really kind of gave me a certain grit and definitely a certain way to protect myself. And I also think, to your point, There was this unique balance between that grime and then the potential of Broadway. You started playing the piano, I think, at seven years old. When did the dream of doing it as a real performer, as a professional, enter into your mind?

8:45Seven and a half? Probably four. Even before you sat down at the Keys. Yeah, because I remember really being introduced to music through my very first kindergarten teacher. She was one of those people that even to this day, she's still alive. And, you know, she always had some scheme up her sleeve. She was going to get us to sing at this place and get us to perform at that place. And, you know, we always kind of had to, okay. And I think that that was a wonderful experience for me to try things that was quite nerve wracking. But the minute I opened my mouth, I learned this song and I sang. I just felt something that I was like, this is something that takes away all the nerves, all the fear, all the things that get in our way.

9:30Do you remember what you were singing at that point? I do. It was Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It was for The Wizard of Oz. It was like the quintessential song that would open your mind like that. You know, it's the song we just released for Hell's Kitchen called Kaleidoscope is very much this somewhere over the rainbow kind of feeling of, you know, your mind opening and realizing that there's more for you out there in the world.

10:15This is really about a life of a young girl in her 17th year and how she is trying to find her way out from under everybody's expectations, everybody's demands, everybody's, you know, weighted things that end up on all of our shoulders. Because people really, they want to protect us, but they in a lot of ways stifle us. And so she's in that very critical time in her life. She's looking for more. She's feeling quite rebellious. She doesn't want to just be told what to do and just, you know, be treated as a little girl. She really is looking for her muse. So your main character is 17 years old and she's named?

10:56Allie. Which you were. She's named Allie. And some people call me Allie, but not many. Not even then? Nope. That's a very special reserved name for only the very, very, very, very most intimate to me. So people really didn't call me that. They called me Alicia. They called me Lelo. I had another nickname, Lelo.

11:29So her name is Ali. And she's 17. and she's really looking for her muse. And she finds a woman who is named Miss Liza Jane and she ends up being quite the mentor for her. She opens her universe to the craft of piano playing, actually. And so she's a skilled, beautiful, classical pianist. And so when she hears her in the Ellington room, which is this kind of multipurpose room in Manhattan Plaza that really exists, she's blown away and she feels like she was... She's found what Mabee's been calling her.

12:09Her mother's raising her as a single mother, and she is really doing everything she possibly can to hope that she can escape all the traps her mom, Jersey, has had to endure. Has your mom been able to see the show? Yes, she has. I want to hear all about that. How did she react moment by moment? Did you sit with her? Of course. First of all, she's at the public. While Hell's Kitchen was at the public, she went at least two times a week. And she is the world's best audience member, no question. She's going to scream. She's going to yell. She's going to ooh. She's going to ah. She's going to sing as if she never saw it before.

12:52It must also have been a deeply emotional, fascinating thing to cast someone to play the character that is essentially you. You're going to stop that. I told you it's not autobiographical, and you're not going to keep saying that. Yeah, I know. But on the other hand, you keep giving it away saying how autobiographical it is, but we won't argue. Tell me about casting this young actress. process what was the was it an audition process or did you go to see people perform around town how did it work yeah it was an audition audition process we have a tremendous casting agency and they were able to bring forth a lot of different um you know a lot of different options i've definitely been notoriously hard on everybody um because it really has to resonate and feel pure and so we auditioned a couple of different people and and then all of a sudden malia kind of showed up.

13:51And we were like, hmm. She would have this tenderness and this ability to tap into these emotional places that felt really sincere. Now, any number of the songs in the show are songs that you've recorded and made hits, gigantic hits in the past, but there's also, I think, four new songs? Yes, there are new songs. And it's been really, it's been great to kind of see what works in regards to the songs that you might be familiar with. It's also been wonderful to see what works with songs that have been in my catalog, but are not the quote unquote gigantic hints. And there's a really special way to connect with them.

14:35And in some ways I feel, man, these songs must have been written for this.

14:53Talk to me a little bit about songwriting, something that you've been doing since you're quite, quite young. I think maybe 11 years old was the first time you were writing songs? Yeah, I think you're right. 11, yes. How has that process changed for you over time? Surely I've definitely gotten more accustomed to how it kind of happens. At first, mostly I was writing out of pain or passion or inexperience or things like that. And that's really how I always write. So that hasn't changed too much. But I do think that with growing, I learned how to create, how to just create the container for what wants to be held.

15:37And then also recognizing that through that creation, sometimes there's different ways it comes about. And if anything has changed, it's that I realize that I never know how it's going to happen. Ever. Never. Well, take a song, an early song like Fallen, which I think is also in the show. It is. It is. It's really cool the way we put it in there. It's totally unexpected. You've never heard it sung like this before. How did it come about? Like the song itself. Yeah. The song itself was really written. I remember writing it in my first car, which was a Mazda 626. and at the time I was living in Harlem and I was also going back to my mother's house because she had the piano and I would go to my mother's house to play the piano but I wasn't really living there anymore and I remember feeling kind of frustrated about a very early relationship I was in and it was like sometimes it was so good and then we'd be like arguing and be frustrated and it was annoying and then I didn't get it and then we were like what was happening and I remember being in my car like feeling that back and forth and back and forth.

16:43And I remember singing this kind of hook thingy, something. I was doing something, you know, something, and I was recording it in my phone or my voice notes. And then I got to my mother's house and I sat at the piano and I kind of played these basic chords. And somehow between there and there and there, all of that emotion and feeling kind of revealed itself in this song.

17:21I'm talking with Alicia Keys, the songwriter and performer, and we'll continue in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come.

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19:31This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Adam Howard. We've been hearing from Alicia Keys, one of the top R &B singers of our time, with a huge string of hits and Grammy awards. Her musical, Hell's Kitchen, which opened on Broadway, is now touring the country. It's loosely based on Keys' own experiences. The main character is a teenage girl named Allie, growing up in the gritty New York of the 1980s, falling in love with music and wanting to get out into the world. She has a love interest, but the crucial relationship in the show is really between the girl and her protective mother. Keys herself grew up early.

20:07She had a record deal and was struggling with the music industry while she was in her teens. Here's David Remnick talking with Alicia Keys in 2024. Now, you are so committed. You've been so devoted to this pursuit for such a long time. And at the same time, I think I'm getting this right. You really seriously considered getting out of the music business. There was a time that you were burned out. You booked a trip to Egypt, I think it was, only after you'd run a full marathon in Greece. What was happening with you? God only knows you had made it. Now you're trying to think about going out the back door.

20:50You know, I don't know if I ever felt like I was going to not be a part of music. But I definitely for sure experienced a very, you know, critical time to recognize how much you have to protect your spirit. And whether you're in music or whether you're a doctor or whether you're a hedge fund person, doesn't matter who you are. If you're in college, you have to protect your spirit. And the world won't do it for you. They really won't. And a lot of times we're out here chasing what we think is success or what we think is a dream or whatever it is that we want to achieve. And oftentimes we're forgetting about how to continue to be a whole human being and a whole person.

21:35And at the time that you're referring to, I was so eager to be successful. I was so eager to, you know, you only get one shot at a dream. So here it is. And you see it right in front of you and you get all these opportunities and you're running after them. and you'll say, I could do this and I could do that and I could also do that and sure I could do that, but I didn't really get any sleep, but I could still do it because maybe tomorrow they won't ask me again. And you have all these feelings of like fear and lack that you won't ever have the chance to do these things again. And so it depletes you.

22:07And so at that point I was realizing that I just, I lost a part of myself or I had never found it yet and I needed to slow down. Since then I've messed it up a hundred thousand times more. I had no boundaries. I still didn't create space. I had people that didn't have my best interest in my world. But slowly but surely, you start to realize, you know, you have to take control of your life. But you've talked sometimes about the loss of what you've called sweet anonymity. And yet, and yet there you are, halftime at the Super Bowl, you're on concert stages, you're about to open a big show. What is that like to lose the gray zone pretty much forever?

22:51I don't know how you get that back. Hmm. You know, I feel like I have found a good balance. You know, I think that a lot of times I realize that is also where you go. You know, when I, if I go upstate and take a hike among the trees, you know, there's a few other people on the trail and I'm just doing my thing and nobody's, everybody's just trying to get to the top of the mountain. So you're a New York girl who believes in trees? I do. Oh, man. Not in the beginning. I was like, I was like, what? What do you mean trees? I don't need no cement, concrete. And I hated camp. My mother would send me to camp, and I'd be like, ugh.

23:35Trees. I'm like the bug, the trees, the grass. I'm with you. But now I realize, wow, you're missing out if you're not touching the grass or seeing some trees or seeing some nature. That's part of how you keep on holding on to your soul and your spirit, too. I have to ask you about this. There was a song that came out called Thunder on the Mountain by Mr. Dillon. And all of a sudden, the lyrics are, I was thinking about a lyric. I won't do the voice. I'll spare you. I was thinking about Alicia Keys couldn't keep from crying when she was born in Hell's Kitchen and so on and so forth.

24:15How did you hear that? And how did you react? You know, the craziest part is that the person who told me about Bob Dylan writing a song with my name in it and Hell's Kitchen, he had a premonition of this musical that was John Mayer. And he was like, did you know that Bob Dylan wrote a song with your name in it about you? And I was like, what? What are you talking about? I had no idea because he was so early, you know, to it that I just hadn't made his way to me yet.

25:04And so, of course, then I'm in shock. Did you meet? I felt like we couldn't meet. I was like, there's no way we can meet. If you wrote that amazing song and put me in it, I just feel like I need to forever see you from afar and just be in awe of the greatness. So we actually didn't. We didn't. Now, it's a good thing you really stuck through that hard time that you were describing earlier, because Fast on Its Heels came tracks on Jay-Z's album, Empire State of Mind, which came out in 2009.

25:51Tell me a little bit about that collaboration. You've had so many amazing collaborations. That may be the most famous single to come out of a collaboration. What was that like? What's that working process like? I think what was unique about that process is I was right at the precipice of making a lot of changes in my life. And, you know, sometimes there's different relationships that you have and you hold on to. And, you know, you don't know how to move from them. But during this process, I remember hearing from somebody else that Jay-Z was really trying to make sure I heard this song. And I'm like, what song?