Alicia Keys has credited her "tough" mother with helping her avoid bad decisions while growing up in New York City.
Keys was raised in Hell's Kitchen, a notoriously rough part of the city, but said that her mum made sure she didn't fall in with a bad crowd.
"I had to decide if I was going to do the right thing or the wrong thing," Keys told The Guardian recently. "Take drugs or not take drugs, or end up getting in the wrong scenario.
"So many people I knew ended up in jail. How did I avoid it? I had a really tough mama."
Keys, who recently admitted that she felt perfectly suited for motherhood, also said that she never saw herself as an overachiever.
"I just see it as having to do what I had to do to get heard," she added. "Growing up in New York City, everybody wanted to be heard so you had to do the work."
Keys recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of her debut album Songs in A Minor with a special acoustic concert in New York City.