The lovely Miss Alicia Keys is this month’s Uptown magazine cover girl. In the article she talked about traveling to Africa last year, all by herself. She wasn’t there to save a child, but to escape from the pressures of the constant attention directed at her, be it for good deeds and the responsibilities involved, or just public appearances..

“I didn’t like myself. I was becoming this person I didn’t recognize because I didn’t know who I was. I was so good at doing what was necessary - being where I was supposed to be, performing really well, and giving the best answers in interviews - but that’s not really who I was.”

Her friends and family didn’t know what she was going through.

“I didn’t know how to tell them, ‘I’m lonely’ or ‘I’m sad.’ For the longest, I would just say, ‘I’m good’ or ‘I’m happy,’ but in the end I learned that [if you aren’t truthful] you get lost in this whirlwind of lies.”

Ah, the pressures of being good at what you do. It’s the real deal.

Couple of fresh pics.

Needs to be seen >> much bigger

There is something really special about how this month’s Uptown magazine is being distributed: the entire issue is available online. I know I’m talking the business end of things here, but hang with me. The magazine industry has been taking a serious beating by the internet’s ability to satisfy people’s appetite for scoop and info at the click of a mouse. Remember how you would wait for a Vibe or Source magazine and flip to the celeb pics or read the gossip column, and feel like you’ve just been put on to something? Today that’s just dusty.

You can’t possibly compete in those areas on a once a month schedule. The only thing entertainment magazines are good for now are the interviews. That’s if you’re even into doing some of that, what we call.. reading.

This is the first time I’ve seen a publisher successfully convert a magazine to a digital web accessible format and retain the look and feel of a magazine: full page ads, photographs, page layouts, they all look perfect.

It’s the type of thing that could have saved Vibe Vixen and Scratch, and it could be the answer for smaller titles like.. Uptown.

Look for this format to be copied by others in the near future.

Here’s the linkage: Uptown Magazine - The Rebirth of Alicia Keys

Either click the headlines or the page button in the upper left corner to flip through the pages.