“Not Even the King” is track number nine off Alicia Keys’s fifth studio album Girl On Fire. This piano ballad serves as the sixth overall single from the album.

The song tells of a transcendent love that is so valuable a king could not even afford it, hence the title.

Keys wrote the song with Emeli Sandé, which was not the first time they had collaborated together. (Checkout “Hope”, “101”, and “Brand New Me”). They both had only positive things to say about each other.

Sandé explained:

Writing with Alicia Keys was really great. I was nervous, but she’s a very warm person. She knew how to make people feel at ease.

Keys called the collaboration “instant magic.”

I have to say, myself and Emeli Sande – when we met and we really began to write together, it was instant magic and that doesn’t happen all the time.