WENN

Alicia Keys has announced her involvement in music industry "initiative" She Is The Music, which is designed to empower female talent.

The No One singer shared the news on Wednesday evening during her acceptance speech for the Icon Songwriter award at the National Music Publishers Association's annual meeting in New York.

As well as thanking family members, collaborators and executives closest to her, the 37-year-old confirmed she is teaming up with a host of "powerful" females to champion musical talent and confront the inequalities currently plaguing the industry.

"I've joined forces with a group of really powerful female executives, songwriters, artists, engineers, producers and publishers to help reshape the industry that we all love by creating real opportunities and a pipeline of talent for other women," she told the audience at The Edison Ballroom in Times Square.

"We want to create a model for change that affects women across all industries. We deserve the utmost respect, and so many of these women across industries are telling our culture that time is up on double standards, and it's over for pay inequity and colleagues who are, at best, disrespectful and at the worst, unsafe."

The singer-songwriter remained vague over specifics of the movement, telling Variety: "You'll be hearing about it" and "We just want it to permeate right now" when asked what it might entail.

But the Girl on Fire hitmaker spoke at length during her speech on its creation, labelling 2018 as "the beginning of so many things."

She cited statistics from a study of Grammy Award nominees conducted by the University of Southern California, which found that of almost 3,000 pop songwriters credited last year, only 12 per cent were female.

"We have to do something because the statistics are brutal," she urged, adding: "Our world is 50-50, and it's time for our industry to reflect that."