“Billions” by Alicia Keys
“Billions” speaks to a concept which can be more simply defined a soul mating. The vocalist recognizes herself as “one in a billion”, i.e. an extraordinarily-valuable person, on top of perceiving the apple of her eye as the same. And that’s basically a roundabout way of putting forth that their uniqueness means that they were made for each other. But of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
So what all of that basically boils down to is the vocalist being in love and as relayed wanting to lock the addressee down.
And it is actually that latter sentiment which absorbs most of the lyrical focus. The vocalist is assuring the addressee that to her, their love is very much real and accordingly is asserting that she never wants it to end.
A Case of Teenage Love?
That said, there is an interesting part of this song is found in the second verse. At the end of this verse, Alicia implies that this is teenage love by noting that the addressee’s mother is unaware of their romance.
The reason that particular segment stands out is because Keys is a solid 40 years old as of the dropping of this track. But maybe what she’s speaking to is a romance that commenced back in the day – when she and the addressee were young. Owing to this, she and her lover were apparently compelled to conceal their love from his moms – which has persisted to this day.
In any event, outside of that weird implication, this is for the most part a basic love song. But what makes it slightly different is that usually in such pieces, the emphasis is on how exceptional the addressee is. But in this case both the vocalist and addressee are identified as extraordinary people, thus insinuating that their relationship was meant to be, in a manner of speaking.
Release Date of “Billions”
“Billions” is a 3 minute 19 second long song from Keys’ eight studio album with the title, “Keys”. The album was released on December 10 of 2021.
It was released through RCA Records, a music label based in New York City.
“Lala (Unlocked)” and “Best of Me” are songs from the album, released in September and October of 2021 respectively. The songs were the only official singles released from the album for promotional purposes.
Credits
“Billions” was composed through a collaboration between Keys and American DJ, record producer and songwriter AraabMuzik.
Aside from being credited with co-writing the song, AraabMuzik holds production credits for it. He is actually its sole producer.
