Alicia Keys, photographed on Polaroid during the video shoot for “Girlfriend” filmed on location in East London, England by Patrick Hoelck on October 8, 2002.

“Anybody who knows me knows I love Wu-Tang. I just love their style because it’s so soulful and so hard at the same time, and I just couldn’t get enough,” she said during a “B-sides” session. “So, I wanted to do my version of ‘Brooklyn Zoo,’” she continued. “I wrote this whole song kind of about a relationship between a guy and a girl. I was dating the guy, but it felt like this girlfriend he had for a long time, a homegirl, was just all up in the mix so I was jealous.”

“I’ll never forget the first time I heard ‘Girlfriend’ in my car in New York on the BQE in my gold 626 Mazda, and Funk Master Flex played it for the first time — dropping all these bombs on it. I almost crashed because this was my dream. So ‘Girlfriend’ was an amazing memory for me.”