I am an anarchist, says Alicia Keys
Riot girl ... Alicia Keys with a big gun in the film Smokin' Aces. Photograph: Getty
It seems that Alicia Keys is not just an expert on "wreckless love," teenage affairs and fallin' for a special someone - she's also got the inside scoop on the conspiracy at the heart of American hip-hop.
Gangsta rap was a "ploy to convince black people to kill each other," the singer has claimed in an interview with Blender magazine. While most people see Ice T and Dr Dre merely as musicians prone to bragging about their sexual conquests, Keys insists they were instruments of mysterious puppetmasters who exist to perpetuate the rap community's strife.
Keys also asserts in the interview that the late-90s feud between east and west coast hip-hop was created by shadowy figures in government. The deaths of Notorious BIG and Tupac Shakur were part and parcel of this plan, an attempt "to stop another great black leader from existing," she told Blender.
Keys isn't afraid of entering politics herself, presumably to put a stop to all this sort of thing. "Some of the greatest artists did their best work when they got political," she told Blender. "If Malcolm [X] or Huey [P. Newton] had the outlets our musicians have today, it'd be global. I have to figure out a way to do it myself."
The singer considers herself an anarchist, and indeed the New York police department revealed last year that they had Keys under observation in the lead-up to the 2004 Republican National Convention, fearing "anarchist actions".
Though there's no sign that Keys has joined a revolutionary commune or taken to donning a black balaclava, she has, er, donated a whole $500 to the US Democratic party. And what could be more anarchist than that?
Nevertheless, nobody should doubt the strength of Alicia Keys' convictions. Her fervour is symbolised in the pendant she wears around her neck. It's not a pretty star or a broken heart, a unicorn or a rainbow. It's instead an AK-47 machine gun. Made of solid gold. And, um, what does it symbolise? "Strength, power and killing 'em dead." Hurrah for speaking truth to power.
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