There’s something about Alicia Keys that makes you feel at ease. Maybe it’s the warm, megawatt smile or infectious laugh. Or perhaps it’s the unspoken sense of calm that emerges when, even 3,600 miles from the Big Apple, you find yourself face-to-face with a fellow New Yorker.

“Hey, sis! Have a seat,” she says, welcoming me into her penthouse hotel suite in her velvety tone. “We’re a long way from home, huh?”

Indeed. Mere months after giving birth to her second child, Genesis Ali Dean, Keys is hard at work promoting the August launch of new Givenchy fragrance, Dahlia Divin eau de toilette.

Glitzy hotel room aside, Keys seems unfazed by the sheer fabulousness that is this moment. And what a moment it is. After last year’s debut of the Dahlia Divin eau de parfum, she’s now celebrating the release of the eau de toilette, a scent that mimics the first but has lighter notes and a softer finish. The marketing push behind Keys’ latest addition to the Givenchy fragrance catalog is peppered with a string of events in the fashion capital of the world. A select group of editors has been flown in from around the globe to take in all of the grandeur that is springtime in Paris–the flora and fauna of the Tuileries Gardens, food coma-inducing crepes, and designer shopping along the Champs-Élysées. All the festivities would eventually culminate in a black-tie fete at a top-secret location. The French sure know a thing or two about doing it big; this launch and its surrounding activities are truly the stuff that dreams are made of—but then, Keys’ life has been full of dreams that came true. 

Read more in the September 2015 issue of EBONY Magazine.