Lifelong New Yorker Alicia Keys surprised fans by giving a performance at World Pride in New York City yesterday — and she delivered all the goods!

The singer also gave an exclusive interview with The Advocate before the performance where she spoke about the future of equality, and what love looks like in the future.

“We as a community of human beings we have a lot to fight for, stand up for, care about, be about, and so we have to show up and remind each other that we’re here for each other,” she said. “Acceptance, tolerance, and equality — for all people — no matter what you look like, live like, believe like, is imperative. We have so far to go on so many levels, but we are more conscious, we’re more awake, and more aware.”

She also spoke about how the cultural perspective is different for her child.

“My son is 8 and his consciousness for what love looks like is totally diverse,” she explains. “He doesn’t have a set determined way of what it looks like. He doesn’t think about it. That excites me because all his friends think the same way. That’s the future. For fairness. everyone on the planet knows what it’s like to not be treated fairly. Even in the simplest way as a child, you experience it and understand unfairness.”

As far as what is needed to break the cultural barriers, she says we need to “catch ourselves before we draw all those conclusions that are in our heads, because so much of it is so systemic.”

Read more at The Advocate.