Alicia Keys will be giving her fans a preview of her new album “Girl on Fire” via a collaboration with YouTube and Google. Keys announced the event in a video on her personal YouTube channel. According to the video, viewers will “hear all the songs on the record [and] I’ll be able to share my creative process and also tell you some of the very special and important meanings behind some of the songs…. I can’t wait to bring my fans from all around the world into my studio.”
The broadcast will take place tomorrow at 4 p.m. Pacific time and 7 p.m. Eastern time and will include a question and answer segment. The album will be released a week later and it features collaborations with other talented people such as Frank Ocean, Emeli Sande, Maxwell and Bruno Mars. “I’m working on some really special surprises that I think will be a lot of fun,” she said in the video.
In addition to the live stream, the “Try Sleeping With A Broken Heart” singer recently announced that she would be touring the United Kingdom next year. I’m in love with this album!! It is full of new beginnings, new perspectives and fresh starts,” she said. “I’m so excited to be touring again and it’s great to be back in the UK!!! I Love it here and I’m looking forward to performing and feeling the energy of the crowd—there’s nothing like it. I plan to bring you something emotional and exciting! I’m a brand new me!”
Part of the new Alicia Keys came from becoming a mother for the first time and this tour will be her first since giving birth to son Egypt in 2010. “The minute I became a mom, I was not a young lady any more,” she said of becoming a mother. “Even though there is still a part of me like that inside, having a child and a family has changed my priorities. The things I thought were important before are much less important now. Before my life was like a wheel, going round and round without purpose.”
Perhaps that new found purpose helped her mend her broken relationship with her father. According to the songstress, she reached out to her dad after the death of her grandmother. “My father and I are fine now. I would say in the process of growing up you realize you’ve been holding on to anger. I was angry then and am sure I had the right to be angry, but if you hold on to all this anger the only person you’re hurting is you,” she told British magazine You.
“The process started when my (paternal) grandmother became ill. You realize what’s important when you see a person you love dearly and you’re not going to have them for long. It was important to her. And I saw (my father’s) love for her. I realized he wasn’t an evil person so I said, ‘Can we start from this point on? Can we be friends? I can start to understand you and you can start to understand me.'”
