Alicia Keys says music saved her from 'path of prostitution and drug addiction'

Alicia Keys. (Courtesy)

Alicia Keys has suggested she would have had a bleak existence if she had not become a musician. The 39-year-old multi-award winning singer burst on to the music scene with her American chart topping single Fallin’ back in 2001. And while she has gone on to sell over 30 million albums worldwide, the critically acclaimed musician says she may have found herself succumbing to a lifestyle of drug taking and prostitution if music hadn’t taken her out of her native Hell’s Kitchen in New York City.

Reflecting on her career as she released her latest album, titled Alicia, the Grammy award winning star reflected on what could have been. She told the Guardian: “I am that person [the underdog] The one that wasn’t supposed to make it out of Hell's Kitchen, who was supposed to end up being a prostitute, a young mother at 16 years old, or addicted to drugs. I am the one who was supposed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got injured or killed.”