2016 MTV VMAs: Alicia Keys goes make-up free, gets standing ovation for Martin Luther King Jr tribute

For more than a decade now, music fans have been able to count on Alicia Keys to always keep it real.

And that's exactly what the 35-year-old singer did as she took the stage at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. She proceeded to recite a poem inspired by Martin Luther King Jr's "I have a dream" speech on its 53rd anniversary.

"If war is holy and sex is obscene, then we got it twisted in this lucid dream," she began. "Baptised in boundaries, schooled in sin, divided by difference, sexuality and skin."

She then launched into an a cappella song, pleading for love and acceptance in verse.

Cue rapturous applause.

Twitter went insane over Alicia's spot, but most of the commentary focused on the fact that she dared to go onstage without a stitch of make-up on.

It was an honest, meaningful and real moment in an event that celebrates the most superficial aspects of popular music.