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Helping Others
RD: So you started out composing songs on that old player piano?Keys: Yes. Then, when I was about 16 and trying to get my first contract, a record company brought me into this amazing room with nothing but windows, on Fifth Avenue overlooking the whole city. There was a white baby grand piano, and I played it. I was in awe. After, the guy sits with me and my manager and says, "That piano is yours if you sign here." Now, to me, a young girl who never had dreamed of owning a piano like that, who had been seduced by this building and the wealth that it took to create it, I looked at my manager, like, We gotta sign. We did, but that [deal] turned sour. So the moral of the story is never sign a contract for a baby grand piano!
RD: So by the age of 16 you had seven figures in the bank from a record company deal.
Keys: Yes. It was seven figures -- well, more like a good solid six.
RD: You've won nine Grammys. When they started coming, did you have any feelings that maybe you didn't deserve to win?
Keys: It's very surreal. But then I remembered this quote about how shrinking from the light doesn't serve the world. That you serve by showing the world that we do deserve to be beautiful and proud and tall and all the great things that can come our way.
RD: What keeps you grounded?
Keys: Having people in my life who really care about me, whether I'm rich or poor, whether I look good or not. My mother came from a big family. She has nine brothers and sisters. They just hug me and say, Sit down, or, How was your day? Those are the things that I surround myself with because this is such a superficial business.
RD: You're involved in a couple of charities. Tell us about why that work is important to you.
Keys: I went to South Africa in 2002 for MTV's World AIDS Day broadcast. I went to medical clinics and there were all these kids, a little younger than me, like 14, living with AIDS. That blew my mind. One woman came up to me and said, "Can you help us? We can't get any medicine and our babies can't live." She was pregnant. I felt like the whole world was on my shoulders. After that trip, I was scheduled to go to the Seychelles, which are beautiful, expensive islands off the coast of Africa. I got there and never felt so much guilt in my life. I would get these huge bills for breakfast and feel like hell. I realized at that moment I can't just go back to New York and pretend I had never seen what I did in South Africa. So I got involved with Keep A Child Alive, which provides antiretroviral medications for [HIV-positive] kids who would never be able to afford it, especially in places like Africa.
RD: You're involved in some charities here that specifically serve teens, right?
Keys: To be able to help a 13-year-old kid from the Bronx follow her dreams just by letting her know she's not forgotten in this crazy world -- that's why I got involved with Frum Tha Ground Up. And I work with Teens in Motion, which is for inner city kids and giving them some hope, making people think that, okay, maybe I can make it out here if I try not to let all of these negative things pull me down.
RD: Do you think you have a particular sense of compassion?
Keys: I've dealt with a variety of people all my life -- from the darkest, really hurting and going through a lot, to the best, the brightest. In my early teens I realized I can walk into a room and tell what's going on in that room.
RD: You must be an old soul. Do you think you've lived before?
Keys: I think I have. I was a much older 13 than most. I'm like, dang, I wish I would have just been a regular 12-year-old. I wish I didn't always take everything on my shoulders so heavy. And still, even musically, I feel I connect with the '30s and '40s. Maybe in some way I was alive then, and came back for this time now.
RD: When you were growing up, did you feel singled out to do something special?
Keys: I felt very determined very early, very adamant about what I wanted and what I didn't want. Maybe it was because of my surroundings. I knew immediately I'm not going to be that girl, standing out on the cold corner, trying to make money selling her body.
RD: Do you want to marry and have kids?
Keys: I do. But I did everything so fast when I was younger that I'm not about to rush into that. I would be a terrible wife right now. You kidding me? So I prefer to wait and live my life as I know I want to now, then later when I feel like that's where my heart and head is, I can dedicate it to another person and definitely to my child.
RD: Is there a way to use music to help people?
Keys: Definitely. I feel like music has a way of reaching people and joining people in a way that not many other things can. With the way everyone got together with Katrina -- music was the driving force that made people say, "Wow, I have to get involved. This moment is my moment to do something good for the world."
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