I went to an Alicia Keys concert a few years ago, and I was surprised to find that most of the audience were what I'd describe as white and middle-class... Having just finished watching her Apple Music concert last night, most of the audience there seemed to fit this demographic (of course you can't tell class just by looking, but humour me), too.

As an artist who seems to embrace Neo Soul, a typically 'black' style of music.. someone who identifies as black, who uses a lot of ebonics in her dialogue, and is primarily based within RnB music and culture, I genuinely wonder what it might be that attracts such a large white audience and fan base to her shows? This is by no means a post to troll or anything, I am just curious... Obviously, we are all entitled to like what we want to like, but as I said, the majority of her audiences seem to be white.

What race are you? If you're white, I imagine they like her for the same reasons you do.

There are so many factors at play in this kind of scenario. In broad terms it has always been difficult for a US or UK Black artist to become really popular without having a wide multiracial appeal, that's about demographics. White audiences and artists have always dug Black music - Jazz, Blues, Gospel, R&B, Rap, Soul, Reggae - and it has been often been white artists that have made some of these forms more acceptable to white audiences (Elvis, The Stones, Cream, Dusty Springfield, Eminem, white musicians on Marley records etc...). Have Black artists like Alicia Keys not adopted to this and popularised their music with different styles?

Black artists often seem to get placed in a cultural place that White artists don't. Even in the OPs comments we are placing Alicia in a Black cultural context, but you would not do the reverse with a White artist like Justin Beiber for example. That puts White artists in some sort of default location and Black artists into boxes.

Black music has always had a big white working/middle class following in the UK. Look at the audiences when the Motown artists came to the UK in 1965. The London shows, in particular, were sold out to an almost crowd. My mum is in her 70's now and she went to the Hammersmith gig. She also spent a lot of nights in Ronnie Scotts listening to jazz and soul

Then roll forward to the 70's when Disco got bigger. The UK scene was about white kids getting dressed up and dancing to black music and it's continued in the vein ever since. The Caister Soul Weekend was started in 1979 by a group of black music obsessed DJ's and attracted a mixed audience - and is still going to this day.

I've been involved with the soul/dance/house scene my whole adult life and I would say the main crowd now is definitely white and middle class - and getting older! Though I will say the Neo Soul/Smooth Grooves events do tend to attract a more mixed crowd and are more of a 50/50 split - but then a lot of the events I attend are in and around London so there may be a different crowd in other parts of the UK

Don't you have to be an Apple Music subscriber to go to the gigs? If so, the audience would reflect the demographics of that service's subscribers.

Some interesting points here about the appeal of black music to white audiences. I came to London in the late 70s and discovered soul music through the pirate stations that were so popular in the capital back then. For me it was a revelation that there was so much great music around with strong melodies, beautiful singing voices, and lyrics that I could relate to even though they were sung by African Americans and I was a white man fresh out of a small town in England.

Isn't Alicia Keys half Irish as well?

Yes, but she'll never be referred to as 'white', will she. She's often referred to (and identifies as) black.

I'm not white, no.

Some really interesting answers, here - I've gained insight as I genuinely didn't know. That makes a lot of sense, about the old soul/funk audiences. I'm guessing that's why things like Motown are still very popular in the UK.

OK, I like her music and white/middle aged, she has good tunes and vocals that are sung in the most part - strong gospel influence/RnB with some jazz thrown in for good measure.

Haven't we all been listening to this style for decades regardless of ethnicity?

I am also a fan of John Legend - is there a similarity?

In the US, audiences were racially segregated right up to the 1960s. The Beatles were amongst the earliest to demand to play to mixed audiences.