Music: Alicia Keys in A-major
When Alanis Morissette needed to clear her head, she went to India. When Mariah Carey couldn't handle the pressure anymore, she went to a sanitarium. When Alicia Keys faced a near-breakdown a year and a half ago, she went to Egypt. By herself. For three weeks.
"That trip was definitely the most crucial thing I've ever done for myself in my life to date," said the Grammy-winning superstar, 27, who will perform Wednesday at Target Center. "It was a very difficult time that I was dealing with, and it just came to the point where I really needed to ... basically, I just needed to run away, honestly. And I needed to get as far away as possible."
The pace and pressure of her workaholic lifestyle were mounting. She was having trouble sleeping. She wasn't happy with the new music she was making. Then her much-loved grandmother died, and her family leaned heavily on her. She had to get out of New York. Fast.
Keys didn't know why she chose Egypt. The destination "just came out of nowhere" when she was on the phone with her travel agent.
"I was like, 'I want to sail down the Nile, I want to see the temples, the tombs and the pyramids. I want to be moved, I want to see something I've never seen before.' And it turned out to be the best choice that I've ever made."
She also traveled to Italy's Tuscany region as part of what she called a "personal pilgrimage" because "I'm half black, and much of my mother's heritage is Italian."
These three weeks of "self-discovery" in late 2006 were the longest break she'd taken since rising to the top with her debut album, "Songs in A Minor," in 2001. Confronting the history, timelessness, strength, fortitude and longevity of the pyramids and temples "gave me a whole new perspective on possibilities for her life and music."
"It did make me a better artist, because I came back and I was just freer," she said in a hour-long conference call from Paris. "I just took all these restrictions off myself and all of these kind of rules and regulations and ways that I was used to creating and all this crap, and threw it out the window. I just allowed myself to be vulnerable and free and open. And it created some of the best music I've ever created."
She started anew on material for "As I Am," which soared to No. 1 in November. It has sold more than 3 million copies, making it the runaway best-seller of the past six months.
The new album is stripped-down and vulnerable. But, for someone known for turning her diaries into hits, her songs are still short on details though long on emotion.
She was similarly circumspect in an interview. Long the subject of romantic rumors -- ranging from: she's a lesbian to she's involved with her musical collaborator Kerry (Krucial) Brothers -- Keys declined to comment about anything personal. That makes her a rarity in the tell-all culture of celebrity journalism.
"I will never come clean on my private life," she said. "I don't think anybody deserves to know, except myself and the person that I love and the people that I love. I think one of the most important things that Oprah ever told me was that if she could, she would take it back. So I think that it just becomes messy. I would prefer people to speculate and get it right or get it wrong, that's fine. But I would rather not make it an issue."
