10 years ago today, Alicia Keys released “Here”
A raw, New York-to-the-bone album about Black life, love and struggle. Her sixth LP went to No. 2 and gave us "Blended Family".
Ten years ago today, Alicia Keys put out the rawest album of her career. Here was released on November 4, 2016, on RCA. It was her first album in four years, following Girl on Fire.
She recorded it in 2014 at Jungle City and Oven Studios in New York, with Mark Batson, Swizz Beatz, Illangelo, Jimmy Napes and Pharrell Williams. She later said the music came faster than ever before, around 30 songs in roughly ten days. Then she found out she was pregnant with her second son, and the release was put on hold.
What came out was aggressive in the best way. It's an album about Black life in America, social struggle and love, with short interludes threaded between the songs. Critics loved how urgent it felt.
- Album
- Here · sixth studio album
- Released
- Nov 4, 2016 · RCA
- Producers
- Keys, Mark Batson, Swizz Beatz, Illangelo, Jimmy Napes, Pharrell
- Peak
- No. 2 Billboard 200 · No. 1 Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
- Singles
- In Common · Blended Family (What You Do for Love)
Here debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and became her seventh No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. A$AP Rocky is the only guest, on "Blended Family (What You Do for Love)", a tender song about blended families, inspired by her own. "In Common", the slinky lead single, was only included on editions outside North America.
The night before release, BET aired Here in Times Square, the concert she had played in the middle of New York a few weeks earlier.
Ten years on, Here still sounds brave. Where does it rank among Alicia's albums for you?
