(audience cheers and applauds)
- I love this outfit!
- Thank you. - Yes!
How are you? How are your kids?
- I'm great. How are you? I miss you.
- [Kelly] I know. You know what?
Now I live here. I'm in New York now.
Yeah, you grew up around here, so like that's
what I, it's awesome.
My kids kids are loving it.
- Oh, I'm so happy.
- [Kelly] My son's loving it more. Yeah.
I said, we're going to the ranch. And he's like,
"Man, okay."
Yeah. He doesn't like that much.
- New York.
- Yeah. He loves it. - That's amazing.
- Was it, do you feel like your kids kind of developed
a certain independence growing up here?
I feel like mine did.
- Definitely. I mean, I think New York will give
you that New York energy.
It's gonna give you that good independence.
Going to teach you a lot really fast,
which I think is incredible.
- Absolutely. So you're doing something cool.
And it's at a Brooklyn museum, right? With your hubby?
- Yes. It's called the Giants.
It's the Giants exhibition.
It's actually a portion of our art collection.
- Yeah. - And it is
at the Brooklyn Museum right here.
- [Kelly] Y'all always look so good.
- [Alicia] Look at that handsome man!
- [Kelly] Yeah. This is so cool though.
Have you always been into art? Both of you, right?
- [Alicia] Yes, we have. We've been collecting
collectively for as long as we've been together.
- Yeah. - And so this has been
a passion because we've been, we've always wanted
to collect works that are special and unique
and we develop really relationships with the artists so
there's not just transactional,
there's a real comradery- - Story.
- There's a friendship, there's a love there.
- Yeah. - And so these works
that are on display are all oversized works.
So when you walk in, you can't believe how big
and grand they are.
And you see these faces on the walls.
It's so gorgeous and stunning.
It is beautiful and we collected the art,
but we, you can't kind of hang
all of it in your house. It won't fit.
- Yeah. - And so to see it
for the first time at the Brooklyn Museum,
even us, was stunning.
We couldn't even believe it.
So it's really special. Y'all gonna love this exhibition.
- Yeah.
I had never been to a gallery even before
I worked on "The Voice."
And I worked with Chance the Rapper, on one of the seasons.
- Right. - And he was just going off
about like how he loves going to galleries
and he loves doing art shows.
And I was like, "Wait, what?"
I've never, you're very like Pierce Brosnan right now.
Like I just, I loved it.
And then he's the reason why I went
to go to my first one and it was so beautiful.
It is. - I've never done
anything like that.
- But it's special, right?
- Yeah. It's very cool.
Especially when you find artists that you really vibe with.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah. And you love what their story is.
- Yeah. I heard that you started your collection on your
first date, which like didn't go well at first. Right?
- Okay. Let's see. Let's see how we tell this story for TV.
You have to do everything kind of like quicker.
- Yeah. Synopsis. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You have to like really get around to it.
So, okay. So what happened was, I think the story,
there's two date stories,
and they both revolve around art.
The first one was that on one of our first dates,
he was late.
And I had to kind of really plan to make this all work
and I just couldn't believe I was there waiting
for him and he was late.
And I was like, "You see, I should have never
even done this.
Why did I even do this?"
And I was all fussing and frustrated.
- Yeah. - And so at the end,
oh yeah, so he brings me a pair of glasses
and I was like, "You're late
and you're bringing me a pair of glasses?"
Couldn't put it together, but he's a giver,
I learned as we went.
He's a giver.
On the glasses bag was this beautiful
artwork of Ariete, who I didn't know at the time.
I said, "Wow, who is this?"
He said, "It's Ariete, you don't know Ariete?
And I was like, "No, I don't know Ariete.
He was like, "I'm gonna introduce you to Ariete."
So that kind of brought us to our second date.
And he actually, well I dunno if it's a second date,
but second moment where we had a special moment
and he actually had the Ariete estate fly
in all of the Ariete works so that I could-
- What?!
- He could introduce me to,
- Oh my God, he is Pierce Brosnan!
What? Like "Thomas Crown Affair."
Like what? Your life is a movie!
- No, he is pretty crazy like that.
I mean, and so that introduced me to Ariete
and I was able to collect one of my first pieces of art
that night because he really introduced me.
And so it led us to this thing.
It was a really beautiful- - That's romantic as hell!
- It was really romantic. - Yeah.
Do you feel pressure when you have to do gift time?
- [Alicia] Well... (laughter)
- Like what do you fly in?
I'm like- - I don't know
if I ever competed with that, but fair to be said
that we do have something called the Birthday Wars.
They've kind of developed over the years.
And I do wanna say that I started it
because, since he was so inventive,
one birthday I threw him his birthday
at the Guggenheim Museum because I know how much...
- Oh my gosh!
- (laughs) And so I think I did pretty good.
It was really incredible and special.
And at that point he was like, "Oh, you want this
to be a competition?"
- Oh, I love y'all.
- And then sometimes I'm like, "No, we have
to have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
We're not doing anything but cuddling and chilling
with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."
- Especially when you're really busy. Yeah. Yeah.
- Because you can't always go crazy crazy.
But we do like to compete.
- Birthday wars! - Birthday wars.
- I would totally win. I know I'm good at birthday presents.
I love 'em. I love 'em, when I remember the birthdays.
Yeah. That's it. Yeah.
(audience cheers and applauds)
(indistinct) totally nominated Broadway musical is
called "Hell's Kitchen."
You can see it at the Schubert Theater in New York.
Congratulations.
We were just talking about 13 nominations.
- Omg! - That's insane.
(audience cheers and applauds)
- Did you freak out when you found out?
- Yes! Not freak, in fact,
I'm not a big, like I don't go too crazy about, I try
to stay quite grounded and everything like that.
And so before the nominations came out,
which this was when it happened, I did this meditation
and I woke up early and I was gonna, I said,
"I'm gonna just ground
and I'm just going to, I wanna give thanks
'cause look what's going on."
This is so incredible that we're
even at this place right now.
So I did a beautiful meditation, gave thanks.
And when I opened my eyes, I had to do some phone calls
'cause we knew that the denominations were coming out.
But I didn't know what happened. I had no idea.
- Yeah. - And so I looked
down at my phone and all I saw was
O.M.G.
And I said, "That sounds kind of good."
- That sounds nice.
- Right? And that's when I found out that,
it was 13 and it was so serendipitous.
I was totally freaking out.
I'm not a big crier, but I definitely was like, "whoa."
And the tears were there because
I've been working on this for 13 years.
- I was gonna say, everybody that I talk to
that does things like, it's over a decade.
They've been working on something for a decade.
So to have it one, just come to fruition,
'cause a lot of times it doesn't.
But to have it come to fruition and you actually finish it
and it's something beautiful that you love.
But then to be recognized for it as a whole nother level.
- It's so true.
And just thinking of my son and he's 13
and just thinking of like how...
- [Kelly] Oh wow!
- That all of it just serendipitously is kind of lining up
'cause the 13 of it all was extra beautiful and special
because of the time and the energy
and the love that's been put into it.
- Absolutely. And you, this is based on Hell's Kitchen.
It's Hell's Kitchen, but that's where you're from, right?
That's where you grew up.
- Right. I was born and raised mostly in Hell's Kitchen,
in the building called Manhattan Plaza,
which is subsidized housing for artists.
My mother moved there in the late seventies.
And she was able to, her first,
her rent there when she first moved was $75 a month.
- Oh my gosh! - Don't we wish?
- Yeah. I was like-
- Like, so the idea was that as an actor
or as an artist, your income fluctuates.
And so per month, you're able to pay
a ratio of what you make.
And that was really, I mean, it changed her life.
It changed my life.
It allowed me to be in the middle of a city that I probably
wouldn't have been able to grow up in.
So it's, it's incredible.
And that is the foundation of "Hell's Kitchen."
- Like the inspiration for it. - It's based in this
building called Manhattan Plaza.
And so you meet all these artists from all
these different walks of life.
You meet Ali, who's a 17-year-old girl being raised
by a single mother in the nineties in the Hell's Kitchen,
which is very rough during that time.
Her mother's very concerned about
her safety and her wellbeing.
And Ali is trying to find her, her muse, her independence,
her freedom, her identity.
She's looking for who she is
and this whole community is really around her.
And ultimately you discover that it's a mother
and daughter love story
because she's the one there for her at the end.
- I actually love that part.
Like I didn't see that coming and I,
was that always the purpose, like the intent of it?
- I think that over time with work-shopping it
and truly understanding the meaning of it all-
- The messaging, yeah.
- We really, we arrived to the realization
that this was a mother daughter love story.
And it's so interesting 'cause as people
who have been in the business for many years,
especially in theater and Broadway, they say
that this is a quite underdeveloped storyline.
Meaning we don't get to see a lot of storylines
that focus on mothers and daughters.
- Yeah. - And I didn't really think
of that before.
- Yeah. - There's many,
many father son stories,
but there's not really a lot of mother daughter stories.
So I thought that was really beautiful,
that this is a special storyline
that you don't often get to see.
- Yeah. You fell in love
with Broadway 'cause of your mama, right?
- I did. She was raised in Toledo, Ohio.
So she kind of, quintessential New York story,
dreamed of coming to New York
to start her career as a dancer and actor.
And so she came here and when I was a kid
we always would stand on the TKS;
inexpensive, cheap ticket lines
so we could get the tickets to go see the shows.
- Yeah. - And we would go,
that would be something that we did together.
And I do believe that that opened my mind
to what's possible in creation, creativity,
and what options there are.
And I never really thought that I,
eventually I would make a musical in this way.
- I was gonna say, was that ever in your like trajectory?
Like, did you ever think that was gonna...
- I didn't, I mean, I was so focused on music
and the whole music business
and the whole thing that we did.
- Yeah. And that's enough. That's a lot.
- Right. - Yeah.
- So as time went creating "Hell's Kitchen" was really
inspired by knowing that there were so many diverse stories
that I witnessed, particularly in Manhattan Plaza.
And I wasn't necessarily seeing those complex, unique,
diverse stories out in the world.
And I wanted to start to create some of them.
And so that was kind of the impetus
that pushed towards starting
to create this idea of "Hell's Kitchen."
- It's brilliant 'cause you got to do what you know.
- Right. - And you know that world.
And like no one could tell that story better than you
'cause that's your story, your world.
I know it's different from your story.
- Right. It's not biographical,
but there is the inspiration of the city
and those people and the real life experiences.
- Yeah. You get it. That's transparent.
So, okay, so we also have Hell's Kitchen, is it fellowship?
Is that what you call?
- Yes. We created a fellowship program with Hell's Kitchen,
which I'm super, super proud of.
'Cause I think the other thing is to continue
to create new opportunities for people
who maybe wouldn't normally be in the space.
And so what we were able to do is get different young people
that were a part of being able
to study under the director, study under the choreographer,
study under the costume-
- Great apprenticeship. - Costume designer.
So these apprenticeships that would allow people
who would not normally be able to study under these greats,
the opportunity to learn the world.
And so it was - That's incredible!
It's a really beautiful part of the program.
- 'Cause it breaks out opportunity
'cause a lot of, I think this industry sometimes
we get in it and then all of a sudden you
figure out, like it's a lot of network.
Like a lot of people get here because they knew somebody
and it's just like random sometimes how we get there.
And it's just an interesting story
how everyone gets to that point,
that door, that opportunity.
And I think that that's really cool
because I didn't grow up with any kind of,
I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere
with no opportunity.
I would've loved that as a kid.
- Right. Yeah. You would've had a chance.
And then to learn under people who were so skilled-
- That you would've never had a chance
to even be in the room with.
- It's beautiful.
- Yeah. It's really cool. Really, really cool.
Any new music to talk about? What?
- Like for me?
Or like with the? - Yes. Like you, Alicia Keys.
- Oh.
I just realized that this is going to,
my next album's gonna be my 10th album.
Y'all told me that.
- I know. It's so funny.
So I just released my 10th one.
That's my last was my one.
And it's weird because you're like,
"That's a lot of albums."
- Wow. - Yeah, it's a lot of albums.
- That's crazy.
- I say, like a fine wine. We're aging like a fine wine.
- [Alicia] I, I I love it.
- I do too. I get better with age.
- That's a fact.
- Yes. - And I'm excited
for creating new music. I really am.
I think it's been so much of a big focus
bringing "Hell's Kitchen" to the world
that now that it's here, I can start
to think about what will happen on the music side.
for me, myself.
- Yeah.
- But I'm also excited about so many young artists
and bringing forth, bringing some young artists
into the mix and be able to be a part of their journey too,
because I think there's so much to share.
I love the fact that,
I think a lot of ways maybe we,
I don't know if you felt like you had a lot of mentorship,
but maybe sometimes it's a lonely road, so-
- Oh, I did not have any.
- I know, - Yeah.
That's why I loved doing "The Voice."
I actually really did love that.
And like, getting to like actually care
and know what they felt like and that moment,
like I didn't have anybody, so
that would've been really cool.
- Yeah, it's helpful. - I think it's cool
to give back like that.
- Me too. - Yeah. I'm looking forward
to your new music.
- Well, thank you. - And you know
what's cool about this part of our career too,
is I love this: We can do whatever we want.
I mean, we've always been able to do that,
but I just mean at a certain point when you do,
you're like, "You know what, I'm gonna do this for me.
I'm gonna like create what I wanna create what I need to,
what is happening right now."
And I think that there's a lot of freedom in that.
That wisdom with age
and like also just people know you by now, so you can kind
of stretch and do whatever you want.
- Yeah. I think that people want you to, they don't, I mean,
of course I think they love you for what they, you know,
what you bring to them.
Which is mostly heart, soul, and passion.
- Yeah. - Between the two of us.
- But usually they're down for the ride at this point.
- Yeah. They're ready for something fun
and to do something that's exciting.
- Yeah. Alright.
I can't wait for new music. - Okay.
- We need a break.
Alicia's Tony nominated musical is called "Hell's Kitchen."
You can see it now at the Schubert Theater.
Up next, Alicia and I go back to our days on "The Voice"
with the little friendly competition.
- Ooh! - We'll be right back.