Sisters Who Know a Woman’s Worth

NEW YORK--Posing for photographs in the penthouse of a tony Manhattan hotel, Alicia Keys and India.Arie hardly seem to be rivals for six of the most sought-after awards in the music business. In fact, the two are so cozy that they sing along with the radio in an impromptu duet on “Me and Mrs. Jones.”

After veteran Irish rockers U2, who have eight nominations, the two young women are the most-nominated artists for the Grammy Awards that will be presented Wednesday in Los Angeles. Between them, they have 13 nominations (Arie has seven; Keys has six) and are competing in six categories: best new artist, song of the year, record of the year, female R&B; vocal, R&B; song and R&B; album. Arie’s “Acoustic Soul” (on Motown) is also nominated for album of the year.

Denver-born, Atlanta-based Arie, 26, and native New Yorker Keys, 21, are both part of the burgeoning neo-soul movement that has infused contemporary R&B; with elements of classic soul and hip-hop. Keys has landed hits with slickly produced, piano-driven songs such as “Fallin’” and “A Woman’s Worth,” from her debut album on J Records, “Songs in A Minor,” while Arie’s guitar-based compositions mix personal experience with strong political viewpoints on the hit single “Video.”

Slumped on a couch in the bedroom of the suite, booked by their record companies for a day of interviews, Arie and Keys look more like a pair of bedraggled friends after a long shopping day than two of the most promising young talents in pop music. They met briefly once or twice at music biz events but never really got to know each other, and this is the first time they have spent any significant amount of time together.

The bed behind them is piled high with head wraps, bras, fuzzy coats and brightly colored dresses. When not sighing like bored teenagers, they tend to giggle. When one of them particularly agrees with something the other has said, she reaches out and touches her on the arm.

Question: Is there any friendly rivalry because you’ve been nominated in so many of the same categories?

Keys: I’m happy for the acknowledgment and for people to like what we’re doing. But a statue doesn’t make me mad at somebody else or make me want to get it more than the other person.

Arie: I want all seven and that’s it! [Laughs.] In the long run, no one statue or award is going to change anyone’s destiny. So if you think you’re going to be competing with anyone else, it’s a true waste of your energy.

Keys: Amen.

Arie: The main thing is that I like the fact that it’s two black women....

Keys: That’s right.

Arie: ... Smart. Talented. Purty inside and out. You know what I mean? I feel proud of that.

Q: Aside from the Grammy nominations, there seems to be an obvious connection between you: two young women of color who write music steeped in soul and hip-hop. Do you feel like you’re coming from the same place?

Keys: I do. I think we definitely have an individual thing. We have our own flow and our own flavor. I definitely think there’s a sisterhood there.

Arie: There’s a common thread and respect for music.

Q: At last year’s Grammys, the big story was Eminem, and this year it’s the two of you. Is that a positive trend for pop music?

Keys: I think that things change like the wind with everything in the world, but especially in music. But it says a lot to embrace strong women musicians. It shows that you can never guess what’s going to be popular. You should never say that’s not going to work because it’s not radio-friendly enough.

Arie: To see so many artists [nominated] who write and sing their own songs, it’s very obvious that there’s a movement of wanting to have more sincerity and honesty in our lives, especially after everything that changed last year. It is very clear that Eminem is not relevant right now because it’s offensive to people.

Q: Both of you write songs about women’s strength. How did your mothers influence your outlook?

Arie: My mother taught me everything I know about music and appreciating art and being an individual and taking chances and writing songs and how to structure a song. She makes my clothes and she does my hair. She’s my girl. My mother’s whole thing was that she was telling me since I was age 10, “Watch how you live your life because you’re going to be very influential and powerful one day.” And I was like, “Why are you saying that?”

Keys: She is my backbone. She is my mother and my father and she’s my sister and my brother. And she definitely showed me what strength is and what perseverance is. She worked late hours from the time I was really young. I always remember her coming in at about 4 a.m. and then getting back to work at 8:30 or 9, and still doing and hustling and helping me with my homework. I see her as a really solid thing.

Q: With the positive messages in “Video” and “A Woman’s Worth,” you’re setting yourselves up in the artist-as-role model mold. Are you comfortable with that?

Arie: It’s great to be in a position to be able to use music to do something that is meaningful and makes obvious changes in the way that a person will think. Or in the way that the media will start to perceive black women. To be able to use music to do that and to be this age, I just feel really blessed.

Keys: I spent a day at a school on 149th Street in this Read to Achieve program that the NBA does. They were like, “I want to sing. I want to play the keys. I hope to play basketball. I hope to be a teacher.” Whatever they wanted to do. To be able to give them something to look forward to doing is something really important to me. At the same time, I have myself and my feelings and what I’m going through. And maybe sometimes you might feel a little crazy or wild or whatever. That’s OK. But my heart and my spirit [are] in the right place, and I’m not afraid to be a role model.

Q: Alicia, in “Girlfriend,” you sing the line, “It’s enough to make a nigga go crazy.” “Nigger” is a word that’s slowly being transformed by its use in pop music. Did you have to think hard about using that lyric?

Keys: Hip-hop is the form of music that I feel the most about. I feel that it’s truth and you should be able to express what you feel in the moment that you feel it, if it is an honest feeling. And sometimes that’s not always the most politically correct thing that you feel. The song that’s under “Girlfriend” is a sample from an Ol’ Dirty Bastard record. And in his song he says, “It’s enough to make a nigga go craaazy.” At the end of the song, there’s that feeling of jealousy that makes you want to go crazy. So I took that line that he said and I sang it.

Since that day, I want it to make clear that I’ve been reflecting on myself. And I have actually chosen not to use the word anymore. Not even in social conversations with [friends]. Not anywhere. Because for me, I don’t feel comfortable saying that anymore. But I don’t regret it or feel bad for doing that.

Arie: On the Sade tour, me and my musical director wrote a song about that. The hook says: [singing] “Keep the N-word out of your vocabulary/Shackles on your feet are all imaginary/There ain’t nothing that prayer and faith can’t do.” And it’s funny because I never really used that word in my conversation. But after [listening to Harvard professor] Cornell West [who objects to use of the word on his CD “Sketches of My Culture”], I was thinking about that.

Q: When either of you plays solo on piano or guitar, I feel like I’m hearing the heart of your music. How hard was it to flesh out that sound in a way that satisfied you and your labels?

Arie: A lot of producers have a sound that’s their signature that they want to try to put on you. I’m totally all the way against that. I wanted to make a guitar sound that’s very soft and real. And to have the words I want to say and still have it be something that can be played on the radio next to Cash Money and not sound little. I got to the point where I couldn’t dance to my own music and I was like, “This is boring.” And the drum machines finally made it happen. It was just a matter of opening my mind to finding the sound. Once I did that, it was like [snaps fingers].

Keys: It actually just took me to go to complete frustration with the people that I was working with and what they were trying to make me do that wasn’t me. It just made me realize if you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself. So I bought all my own equipment and went to my little crib on 137th Street, and I started banging away and playing. I already knew music and the keys. It was just a matter of getting the sound that I wanted to hear, with messing up and trying again and listening to the records I love. Sometimes you have to take it into your own hands to get what you want.

Q: India, before being signed you were part of a musicians’ collective and put out your own album. Do artists have to make do for themselves now and not depend on record companies?

Arie: I think that it puts you in a position of power and experience when you do it that way. You have more performance experience. You know how you want to look. You can come in with the music and say, “This is what I do. If you sign me, this is what you’ll get.” People forget that the artist is as useful to a label as the label is useful to the artist. The artists, I would say, are even more important. I’m like, “You’re lucky that you found me.” They don’t give you anything. But they take a lot.

Keys: I think that the independent route is a good route to explore. You don’t always have to have somebody else do it for you.

Arie: Of course, I had my own label and I had to find my own way to go. And it was very, very, very, very, very hard just making a name for yourself and becoming an entrepreneur as the years go by.

Keys: It’s crazy. It’s not a game.

*

Isaac Guzman is a staff writer for the New York Daily News.