Alicia Keys says motherhood made her stop caring about what other people think.
Alicia Keys
The 39-year-old singer/songwriter has sons Egypt, nine, and Genesis, five, with her husband Swizz Beatz and revealed that becoming a mom in 2010, helped her to focus more on her own happiness rather than worrying about the outside world.
Alicia told Clash magazine: "Honestly it doesn't matter how much success you've had or how much money you have, whatever you have is kind of fleeting - it's about what spirit you have.
"Nobody is being encouraged to be more themselves. More like everyone else, that's what we're encouraged to be... Motherhood got rid of all that stuff, about making people happy...everything became more clear."
Meanwhile, Alicia also revealed she wrote 'Girl on Fire' to remind herself how "special" she is during difficult times that need a drastic change.
She said: "Every time I've written a song that represents female empowerment, I never knew I was writing it... But I love that I'm the person that wrote 'Girl On Fire', 'Superwoman', 'Woman's Worth' - it's always been because I've needed a push, I've needed to remember that I'm special, to recall that I have that strength.
"At this time in the world we're really seeing how important the feminine energy is. It's so important for balance, it's so important for everything. And it's definitely happening - that's why we have to go through all this bullsh*t. It's time for drastic change, drastic. I mean if a woman was running the country, would this sh*t be going on?"
And Alicia has penned an autobiography, 'More Myself', in a bid to let her fans into her world her by exploring her "journey so far".
She explained: "I've always wanted people to really know me, I just wasn't ready to share it. But now I am.
"In so many ways the book brings us through the journey so far and explores these themes and places that we're all going through [as women] and how to really become our authentic selves."
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