New Music: Alicia Keys – Power

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Alicia Keys honors strong and courageous men and women on her previously unreleased song “Power.” The R&B star searches within to find her strength on the empowering record, which she recorded in 2007 and just released on her website The Vault.

“This is one of my favorite unreleased songs,” said Alicia. “I was looking for my power. This song says it all. All of these pics inspire me! They represent the power of being yourself and finding yourself! Shine on!”

Read her full message and take a listen below!

I wrote this song one afternoon in LA when I was feeling deep desolation; Desperation even…. I’d just lost my grandmother and I felt so guilty about it, so hurt and full of emptiness. I’d run away to LA to clear my head and to not have to be in NY with all my memories. One morning these lyrics started circling around me.

The song kept unfolding around me Words about victory and fear Doubt and triumph. How I was meeting them on the road through the journey of my life And which would win? It was exactly what I was asking myself. I couldn’t feel my own power at that moment so I talked myself through it, just to feel better.

Fast forward to now and the word power is something that I’m thinking of more than ever. What is power and what makes me powerful?? I also can feel myself stepping more into my power by realizing who I am, who I’m not, what I love, what I don’t, identifying in which ways I want to grow and which ways I want to stay just the way I am. Stepping into my power by asking myself, who do I want to become?

It makes me wonder, when did men like Martin Luther King and women like Coretta Scott King step into their power? When did they realize that they could be the voice for those that felt ignored and misunderstood? When did they realize that they could help lead an entire generation to trust and believe in the greatest possibility and fight for it altogether with no apology!?

I feel the power!! It was inside of MLK and Coretta! It was inside of our mothers and fathers! It’s inside of you and me! It’s inside of all of us! Are we ready to step into it??