Still looking as beautiful as ever it’s been 10 years since Alicia Keys made her first debut. Here she is photographed for the latest issue of W magazine( June 2011.) In the spread, Keys dons Alexander McQueen couture, crimson lipstick, and untamed curls as she speaks about her humble beginning and hitting it big with her Grammy-winning album ‘Songs in A Minor’ in 2001.

Wearing an Alexander McQueen wool military-inspired blazer and crimson lipstick, Keys — who grew up in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City — talks about how her city upbringing helped her remain to herself. “I just wanted to be who I was, which was like so many other girls I knew,” she says. “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.”

The ‘Fallin” songbird, who is married to producer/rapper Swizz Beatz, also opened up about the struggles she faced as a musician trying to capture the specific sound she wanted to create. “I was a young girl with very strong ideas but no experience,” she explains. “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.”

Although outside influences attempted to alter her sound, Keys knew she had to remain true to her own artistic vision. “How terrible would it have been if I had come out with some watered-down version of who I am?” she asks. “People fell in love with the real me, and I still feel blessed that that was how the journey began.”

Alicia Keys will be releasing deluxe and collector’s editions of ‘Songs in A Minor’ on June 28, and both include the original track listing in addition plenty of bonus and live material.

source: www.pynkcelebrity.com