Alicia Keys says she is past the Lil Mama incident where her performance with Jay Z for “New York” was crashed by the young rapper a decade ago.
Earlier this year, Lil Mama said Jay-Z and Alicia Keys ignored apologies for the infamous 2009 VMAs incident, which saw her hopping on stage in the middle of their performance of their classic hit “Empire State Of Mind”.
Lil Mama noted that she was a teenage black girl when she entered the music industry and the unfortunate situation was with grown adults at least 10 years her senior. Nevertheless, she reached out to both Alicia Keys and Hov in private but was ignored.
“I reached out in private to create an opportunity for communication and clarity,” Lil Mama said in response to a fan who tried to troll her for the incident saying she was canceled for it.
She added that she never heard back from either of them as the incident “continuously misrepresenting my brand in public.” Something she said she won’t be tolerating.
Alicia Keys, however, says she wasn’t even aware that Lil Mama was on the stage during an interview with the Morning Hustle Show.
“Listen, to this day I truly never knew she was even on the stage. That’s the craziest part of the whole thing for me. I was on that stage, she was in the middle, she was on the other side of Jay and I never saw her. Never. That was wild to me. It’s not even a thing for me. She was from New York too and I think she really felt the energy of the record and she couldn’t hold herself back…I mean that’s what my music does to people!” Keys said.
In a previous interview, however, Keys speaking on the Today show shortly after the incident, was not impressed by the rapper’s actions. She alluded to Lil Mama possibly being overwhelmed by the hit song especially since she is also from New York, but she would’ve rather she celebrate the moment from her seat and not come on the stage.
Jay-Z, too had shared his displeasure with Lil Mama’s actions. Hov told Angie Martinez interview that Lil Mama was out of line to interrupt the performance which took a lot of planning to execute perfectly.
