Alicia Keys Reflects on 25 Years of ‘Fallin’ ‘

Before the awards, before the sold-out tours, there was a 20-year-old with a piano and a song about complicated love. That song was “Fallin’,” and it introduced the world to Alicia Keys in March 2001.

Now, 25 years later, looking back at her debut hit fills her with joy.

Speaking with PEOPLE at She Is the Music’s Women Sharing the Spotlight event in West Hollywood, Calif., on Feb. 18, Keys reflected on the upcoming anniversary of the soulful ballad that helped launch her career.

“I’m not sure how I wrap my head around this whole existence called life,” Keys told the outlet. “It’s very crazy and wonderful and exciting and amazing.”

“Fallin’ ” quickly became a massive success. It spent six weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and helped push her debut album, Songs in a Minor, to huge heights. In 2002, Keys won five Grammys thanks to the song and album, including Song of the Year, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, Best R&B Song, Best R&B Album and Best New Artist.

But when she thinks back to that time, she remembers how unsure she felt.

Keys continued to tell the outlet, “And just thinking back to that girl in me at that time and how she had no idea, none. That she was completely what you call ‘fake it till you make it’ — that’s what she was doing, and she did a d--- good job.”

Even though she did not have everything figured out, she trusted herself.

“The more I grew, the more I learned,” Keys explained to the outlet. “And so I think about her, and I’m so appreciative of her because she was strong, she was clear. Even though she didn’t know everything, she knew what she didn’t want and she knew what she had to hold onto — and that was authenticity and truth and honesty and music.”

For Keys, the journey is still unfolding.

The singer added, “So I’m very proud because I recognize her in me today. So that’s a beautiful thing. So to be able to come all this way and have all these years to be creating and to have not even hit the tiny bit of where I’m going is a really, really exciting thing. So I’m grateful.”

Even after decades in the spotlight, she feels like there is so much more ahead.

At the event for She Is the Music, a nonprofit organization that Keys co-founded to help increase the number of women working in the music industry, she also spoke about the woman who helped guide her early on.

“I think about that a lot. I would definitely say [Universal Music Publishing Group CEO and She Is the Music co-founder] Jody Gerson,” Keys said. “And she has been my publisher since I was 14 years old. So she for sure took me under her wing and she saw something in me that was special.”

“And [Gerson] said, ‘I know this girl is up to stuff,’ even before I knew I was up to things. And so that’s the pure example of how you really create an avenue for somebody — and so she did that for me. And now us doing this together is just the icing on the cake,” Keys added.

Twenty five years after “Fallin’ ” first played on the radio, Alicia Keys is still grateful for the young woman she once was and the people who believed in her. And if she has learned anything since then, it is that growth never really stops.