The duo talked about handling fame at a young age for Time's "Voices of the Future" Women's Summit on International Women's Day.
Alicia Keys and Amanda Gorman discussed the pressure to be perfect from a young age during Time's "Voices of the Future" Women's Summit on Monday (March 8) for International Women's Day.
Between these two, their work has been honored at Music's Biggest Night and at the Big Game. At just 20 years old, Keys released her debut studio album Songs in A Minor, which earned the singer her first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit "Fallin'" and five Grammy Awards, including best new artist and song of the year. Gorman, who just turned 23 on Sunday, has already been honored as the National Youth Poet Laureate and recited her original poems during the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and Super Bowl LV earlier this year.
"First thing looking back, I did feel like I automatically had to be perfect. I felt like somehow I had to be this image or this perfection that people expected of me," Keys told Gorman about experiencing success fairly early in her life. "And I carried that through a lot of my life, so if there's one thing that I would definitely share, it's your humanity and your individuality and the fact that you are imperfect. In fact, I've actually decided to remove the word 'perfect' from my vocabulary 'cause I think it's detrimental.... And so being perfectly imperfect is the magic, and now I know that."