Michelle Obama wants it to be clear: She’s a major Alicia Keys fan.
The first lady made an unannounced visit Wednesday to the Grammys on the Hill Awards in Washington, where Keys was being honored.
{mosads}Obama called the “Empire State of Mind” singer “a woman whose songs light up my iPod,” telling the audience gathered at The Hamilton that Keys’s tunes “keep me going through long rides and long trips.”
“Now, over the years, I have rocked out to ‘Girl on Fire;’ I have tried and failed to sing along to “Fallin,’ ” Obama said to laughs, calling Keys “my friend, my girl.”
The praise from FLOTUS wasn’t one-sided. While accepting her Recording Artists’ Coalition award, Keys gushed to Obama, “Thank you also to the most incredible, phenomenal, authentic, organic, realest woman in the world.”
“I mean, there’s people who talk and there’s people who do,” the pianist and founding member of the Grammy Creators Alliance, an artists’ rights advocacy group, said. “What an example and inspiration you are to me, as well,” she added in a nod to Obama.
It’s not the first time Obama and Keys, 34, have teamed up. The first lady hosted the songwriter at a screening of Keys’s movie, “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete,” at the White House last year. Keys also changed the lyrics to her 2012 hit, “Girl on Fire,” when she performed at President Obama’s 2013 inaugural ball, belting out, “Obama’s on fire.”
Reps. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) were also recognized at Wednesday’s event. Among some of the other lawmakers eyed at the music-centric awards ceremony: Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — who told ITK she’s practically a U2 groupie, “Our whole family knows every word to every U2 song,” — Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Billy Long (R-Mo.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.), Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).