Music superstar song-tress Alicia Keys commemorated her debut album Songs in A Minor by releasing a 10th anniversary deluxe edition collector’s item. The landmark LP has elevated “Major Keys” as a budding icon, Alicia recalls the struggle to trust the voice within, when others pressured her to be conventional.

“I just wanted to be who I was, which was like so many other girls I knew. We grew up in the city, had a hard edge and obstacles to overcome, but we were still young and beautiful. I didn’t want to be all dressed up, all made up—I wanted to be myself, which hadn’t been done before.”

“I was a young girl with very strong ideas but no experience. I just knew that everything else I was doing was wrong—that all the suggestions weren’t what was in my mind, they weren’t what it was meant to be.”

“How terrible would it have been if I had come out with some watered-down version of who I am? People fell in love with the real me, and I still feel blessed that that was how the journey began.”

Spotted@ NecoleBitchie