Which song is featured in the Alicia Keys Allstate commercial? Companies are always teaming up with celebrities to make TV commercials that stand out and grab their target market’s attention and insurance provider Allstate is no different. The brand has worked with many celebrity spokespeople over the years such as former Saturday Night Live cast member and Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones – who appeared in a commercial for Allstate’s Drivewise app – and Project Runway host Tim Gunn who once promoted the company’s home insurance in an advert.
One of Allstate’s most prolific and recognizable celebrity ambassadors is 24 actor Dennis Haysbert who joined the company as a spokesperson in the early 2000s and has since appeared in hundreds of its TV commercials. Another well-known Allstate representative is actor Dean Winters of Oz and 30 Rock fame who has played a popular, accident-prone character known as Mayhem in several Allstate ads since 2010 – one of which featured his 30 Rock co-star Tina Fey.
In 2021, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Alicia Keys became one of the latest celebrities to team up with the company when she lent her voice to Allstate’s “Everything’s Alright” commercial. Created by advertising agency Droga5, the sun-soaked commercial features a young woman driving along a road in a convertible car with a trio of musicians in the backseat as Keys provides a voiceover that promotes the benefits of buying insurance from Allstate and a catchy, summery tune plays over the action. Despite featuring a talented musician like Alicia Keys, the Allstate commercial doesn’t utilize one of her songs but a horn-driven instrumental jazz track from the 1960s. The song in question is “Grazing In The Grass” by legendary South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela for his 1968 album The Promise Of A Future.
According to Stereogum, the song only came to be because Masekela was contractually obliged to make The Promise Of A Future a half-hour-long album but was a few minutes short of that runtime – and so “Grazing In The Grass” was born. It might have been a last-minute addition, but the song was a success that spent two weeks at number one on the U.S. music charts and was recently inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Masekela’s “Grazing In The Grass” has been featured in lots of other projects besides the Alicia Keys Allstate commercial. As per Masekela’s IMDb page, the song and various covers of it can also be heard in movies including Battle Of The Sexes, The Last King Of Scotland and in an episode of the TV show Better Call Saul.