To her, when she grew up, music wasn’t about whether you were a black artist or a white artist: she grew up listening to Z100 and fell in love with Nirvana and Mary J Blige in tandem. But then she entered the industry, and, “Because of the commercialism of America it started to get segmented, so that people could advertise to a certain group of people,” says Keys. “Figuring that, ‘Hey, I can make more money by advertising to this specific need of this group of people,'' rather than producing music for the entire market. She remembers that during this time Prince – who she covered on her first record, performed with and who was a huge fan of her music – used to come to see her shows and report back to her after each one: “How it felt, what was happening, the sound.
He would always be very, very, very honest.' After one show, Prince came to speak to her.
