Alicia Keys Hits the Studio with J. Cole

Alicia Keys and J. Cole are cooking up a collaboration.

The 15-time Grammy winner recently linked up with the Dreamville rapper while recording her new album in the Bahamas. She shared footage from their studio session as part of her new YouTube docuseries, “Noted: Alicia Keys The Untold Stories.”

In the 20-minute episode, Alicia sat at the piano while singing, “Don’t leave me lonely” as Cole added his own harmonies.

She also explained her process. “All I care about is trying to find the right words to say what I actually mean,” she said.

At one point, Cole asked Alicia what defines success to her. “Everybody wants the music that they put their hard work into to be as successful as possible, but to me success is, like, I wanna awe people,” she said.

At the end of their studio session, Cole seemed satisfied with the results. “That shit came together.”

Alicia was also joined in the studio by Raphael Saadiq, Mike WiLL Made-It, and Swae Lee, who she collaborated with on her single “LALA (Unlocked).”

Cole has been an Alicia fan since he was a teenager, but they’ve never collaborated before. When he was 14, he had a “super-duper crush” on the “Fallin’” singer.

“There was a few of these in my life. Mariah Carey was one when I was real young. Alicia Keys when I was a little older. I felt like I had a chance,” he told The Fat Jew in a 2013 interview.