During the 67th Grammy Awards at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, Alicia Keys’ received the Dr. Dre Global Impact Award. The award was established in 2023 and recognizes artists whose influence extends beyond music. Queen Latifah presented Keys the award and highlighted the artist’s many accomplishments both in and out of the music industry, saying “she is always there when we need her.”
When Keys took to the stage to accept the award, her speech highlighted how beautiful the evening had been, as well as the impact female producers have had on the music industry and the importance of DEI. Read the transcript of her full speech below.
“This is such a beautiful, beautiful night. I’m so grateful to be here with you tonight. I’m so grateful for this energy in the room tonight, the love, the community. It’s a real thing, tonight is a beautiful, powerful thing that we are cultivating. So I just want to give big love to my brother, Dr. Dre who created a sound that began a movement, and your sound told me that if you’re a creative growing up in Compton or Hell’s Kitchen, you can touch the world. I always had to fight for a certain level of respect as a songwriter, a composer, and especially a producer.
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It’s strange that we don’t think of women as producers like Quincy or Dre or Swizzy, but female producers have always powered the industry. Patrice Rushen, Missy Elliot, Linda Perry, Grimes, Solange and so many more, we stand together. It’s a beautiful feeling to be acknowledged, but a thing I always thought people didn’t really recognize about me. This is a beautiful thing I’ve been blessed to create with some of the most superpower ground-breaking risk-takers like Terria Joseph (my mama) and Missy Elliott, Desiree Perez, Jodi Gerson, they saw in me what I didn’t see in myself, and we started She is the Music to open the doors for other women who didn’t get the opportunities or credit they deserve. So this is for all the ladies that know the magic that they bring to the room.
This is not the time to shut down the diversity of voices. We’ve seen on this stage, talented, hard-working people from different backgrounds with different points of view, and it changes the game. DEI is not a threat, it’s a gift.
And the more voices, the more powerful the sounds. When destructive forces try to burn us down, we rise from the ashes like a phoenix, and as you see tonight, music is the unstoppable language that connects us all. It’s so beautiful. So let’s keep showing up with compassion, with empathy, what I call soul care. Keep opening the doors. Dream the world as it ought to be, as the great Toni Morrison said.
So, thank you for this massive award, this massive honor, to the academy, to the Black music collective, to everyone who has ever been touched by the music and the message . . . And most importantly, to every artist out here tonight, you are brilliant. Look what’s happening in this room tonight. This room is unstoppable. It’s powerful. It’s uniqueness at its finest. So never stop being just like you. Just like you. This is amazing.”