Grammy Award-winning artist Alicia Keys recently sat down with Revolt's Drink Champs and shared her and JAY-Z's reaction to Lil Mama crashing their 2009 MTV Video Music Awards performance.
Keys and JAY-Z were on stage performing their hit single "Empire State of Mind" when Lil Mama ran on stage, ultimately hitting a b-boy stance at the end of the set. The fallout of her gaffe, which even Beyoncé tried to prevent from happening, caused the "Lip Gloss" rapper to be the subject of a plethora of jokes.
“The truth of all the truths — all I know, we was on that stage. Jay was here, I was here. In my head, I was such a guerrilla at the time and I was like, ‘This is what’s happening. I’m going to destroy this record tonight.’ … Somehow, however she got over here, I didn’t even bear witness to. The whole show I was iced — so focused on making it amazing,” Keys recalled, according to Hip Hop DX.
“I went backstage and Jay was like, ‘So, you ain’t see that?’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And he was like, ‘Nah, you ain’t just see what just happened?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, we killed it. That’s what happened,'” the Songs in A Minor songstress added.
Keys admitted that she was not aware that Lil Mama was on the other side of JAY-Z due to her laser focus. But many viewers that night remember the look of annoyance that draped JAY-Z's visage.
"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, Jay was in the middle, she was on the other side of Jay, and I never saw her. Never,” she said.
Back in October, Keys appeared on The Morning Hustle, saying that she forgave Lil Mama and understands that she was just an excited, dewy-eyed teenager who was feeling the song, Revolt reports.
"That was then.You know, she’s from New York, too. You know, I think she really felt the energy of the record and she loved it and she couldn’t hold herself back. Look, this is what my music does to people. What can we say?” Keys said.
This year, Lil Mama did attempt to reach out to both Jay and Keys to offer her sincere apologies for disrupting their performance, but neither individual responded to her.
"I entered the industry as a teenage Black girl from Brooklyn and Harlem, New York. These situations are with mature adults at least 10 years my senior. I reached out in private to create an opportunity for communication and clarity," Lil Mama explained to a fan who brought up the mishap, according to Revolt.
