Alicia Keys Kicks Off the Grammys With Her Version of 'Someone You Loved'

"It's when good people do nothing that the bad guys win..."

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Alicia Keys performing at the 2020 Grammy awards.
(Image credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Alicia Keys chose to open the Grammys with a moving, acoustic version of Lewis Capaldi's heartbreaking ballad "Someone You Loved," paying tribute in her Grammys introduction not only to Kobe Bryant, who had passed away hours earlier, but to the biggest names in music. "Music is that one language we can all speak," she explained before she began singing. "No matter where we're from. We all understand it."

Sang Keys: "Rosalía's hot, Beyoncé took us all on safari/We obsessed by BTS, HER, and Lewis Capaldi—" Keys broke from the song here to ask Capaldi if he was okay with her covering his hit song, to which he gave her an emphatic thumbs-up— "Jonas Brothers return/Billie and Phineas/Camila like Shawn, they call her señorita/Ariana went next/Tyler brought us "Igor"/Lil Nas rode that road 'til he couldn't no more."

Then, the chorus: "It's the Grammys/Gonna have a ball/And here's Alicia Keys/To get you through it all/If you like country/Or you prefer Young Thug/Imma getcha kinda used to hearing music you love..."

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Her next verse: "Commander impeached, y'all/Get out, get Cardi B in/Cause music changes the world/Just like Beethoven said/Old dude had a wig/But I still give him some cred/It's just too many lies/Too much hate, too much spin/It's when good people do nothing that the bad guys win...But it's the Grammys/Ten thousand hours long/So keep the speeches short/And go for one more song/To all my overkills/And all my underdogs/Imma getcha kind of used to knowing music is love."

Here's the full cover:

Keys also brought Boys II Men onstage to sing an emotional rendition of "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye" in honor of Bryant. Several members of the audience could be seen openly weeping during the tribute.

Keys: The hero we need in 2020.

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Jenny Hollander
Jenny Hollander
Digital Director

Jenny is the Digital Director at Marie Claire. A graduate of Leeds University, and a native of London, she moved to New York in 2012 to attend the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She was the first intern at Bustle when it launched in 2013 and spent five years building out its news and politics department. In 2018 she joined Marie Claire, where she held the roles of Deputy Digital Editor and Director of Content Strategy before becoming Digital Director. In her spare time, she writes fiction: her first novel EVERYONE WHO CAN FORGIVE ME IS DEAD was published in February 2024 and became a USA Today bestseller. She has also written extensively about developmental coordination disorder, or dyspraxia, which she was diagnosed with when she was nine.