Alicia Keys is a modern-day Renaissance woman—a 15-time Grammy Award-winning artist/songwriter/musician/producer, an accomplished actress, a New York Times best-selling author, a film/ television and Broadway producer an entrepreneur and a powerful force in the world of activism. Since the release of her monumental 2001 debut album, Songs in A Minor, Keys has sold over 65 million records and built an unparalleled repertoire of hits and accomplishments. Keys’ forthcoming seventh studio album ALICIA is slated to be released worldwide later this year. The first single “Show Me Love” earned Keys a record-extending 11th number 1 on the Billboard Adult R&B Songs airplay chart. Keys released her new book More Myself: A Journey on March 31, 2020 via Flatiron Books, which debuted at #3 on the New York Times Bestseller List.

Behind the wheel of her car as she was driving through her adopted hometown of Nashville in the depths of winter, two words came to Maren Morris: humble quest. Having entered her 30s, the singer-songwriter found herself pondering her place on Earth. As a singer-songwriter who worked her way up from a starry-eyed Texan teen to a woman with strong Nashville foothold, Morris was used to having to abide by the uncomfortable, undefined set of rules of staying humble, trying to navigate around unseen pitfalls and dramatic consequences. She felt how “humility” could be a cudgel against women who dared make more for themselves. As a series of major life changes unfolded—new motherhood, an upended existence as musician, a close friend’s death, living and working with one person nearly 24/7—Morris found herself reckoning with humility in ways she’d never imagined, and a breakthrough for her third album.

By early 2020, Morris was ready for some down time after hitting the road in support of her 2019 LP Girl and a banner breakout year among The Highwomen with Amanda Shires, Natalie Hemby and Brandi Carlile. Within weeks of devastating storms and a harrowing pandemic making their way to Nashville, she gave birth to her first child. Hunkered down with their baby at home in Nashville, Morris began writing the songs that became Humble Quest. Morris found herself drawn to themes that freed her from the dark clouds of everything around her. Meanwhile, her Girl single “The Bones” became a slow-burn hit all its own, netting Morris three CMA trophies and a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song.

When it came time to put her quest to tape, Morris enlisted producer Greg Kurstin— known for his work with Adele, Beck, and Foo Fighters, to name a few—to assemble the project through a mix of remote and in-person sessions. The producer also offered a Hawaiian writing retreat for Morris that proved to be a beneficial change of scenery as the songs continued to develop. Despite Kurstin’s earlier multitasking work on Girl, Humble Quest was Morris’ first time taking on a record without celebrated producer and songwriter Michael Busbee. Having helped Morris hone her own artistry, the celebrated producer, songwriter and confidant died of cancer at 43 in the fall of 2019. In the short time before he passed, Morris and her husband Ryan Hurd co-wrote album closer “What Would This World Do?,” rooting for a friend to keep fighting.

Busbee’s piano made its way to Morris’ basement, and it was there that “Humble Quest” started to take shape in song form. Morris kept writing, and as she enlisted the likes of Jimmy Robbins, Natalie Hemby, Laura Veltz, Jon Green and, of course, Hurd to join her, the songs became a counterweight to the heavy expectations of life and everything else. Humble Quest is Morris’ journey toward her higher self, reveling in the lightness of newly re-evaluated priorities. She celebrates the flashes of life that make the harder parts easier to bear: the unfailing fortitude of friendship, the fizzy delight of a crush in full bloom, the thrill of climbing toward an achievement.

In other people’s hands, humility can be applied as a weight, a set of demands to stay small. But in undertaking her Humble Quest, Morris finds humility as an ever-compounding reward that presents every opportunity for joy as a rare and precious gift. As she’s shown Texas, Nashville and the rest of us, Maren Morris is no damsel in distress. She simply doesn’t give a damn.