Alicia Keys Finally Addresses the Moment Lil Mama Crashed Her Performance With Jay-Z at the 2009 VMAs

Remember when Lil Mama jumped in on Alicia Keys and Jay-Z's iconic "Empire State of Mind" moment? Alicia doesn't! Read on for more details.

By Kisha Forde Dec 10, 2021 4:42 PMTags

No one, no one, no one..can get in the way of Alicia Keys' good time onstage, not even Lil Mama.
 
During the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, the rapper abruptly joined Jay-Z and Alicia onstage, striking a pose toward the end of the duo's performance of their New York City anthem, "Empire State of Mind." Now Alicia has revealed to fans that she had no idea what was happening at the time.
 
"Basically, I remember absolutely nothing," she told Complex News in a recent interview. "I think I was so focused on performing. Because when you perform, it's a lot. You gotta hit it. You gotta nail it. You gotta kill it. It has to be perfect."
 
Explaining that she and Jay performed at opposite sides of the stage before coming together at the end, she added, "When I tell you, 100 percent, I was oblivious to the idea that next to him was another person, which, kind of scared the s--t out of me later when I figured it out."

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In fact, it wasn't until Alicia was back in her dressing room that she found out what had happened from her collaborator. "I go to my dressing room and [Jay's] face is like funny," Alicia explained. "I was, like, 'Yo, that was so crazy.' He was, like, 'You ain't see that?' I was like, 'Huh?,' adding, "We just killed it, that's what I saw."

In late 2009, just a few weeks after the VMAs, Jay-Z talked about the incident on Angie Martinez's Hot 97 radio show.

"To interrupt that moment for us, I don't think that was the right thing to do," he shared at the time. "It was a lot of planning that went into that performance. To disrupt that was outta line."

Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Earlier this year, Lil Mama revealed on social media that she's attempted to privately apologize to both stars for storming the stage, but says her efforts have gone unanswered.

For Alicia, it's all water under the Brooklyn bridge.

"That was then. You know, she's from New York, too," Alicia said on The Morning Hustle Show in October. "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?"