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Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter, pianist, cellist and actress. Born in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York, she was raised by her mother and made a television appearance on The Cosby Show in 1985. She attended Professional Performing Arts School and graduated at sixteen. She later attended Columbia University before dropping out to pursue her music career. Keys released her debut album with J Records, having had previous record deals first with Columbia and then Arista Records.

Keys' debut album, Songs in A Minor, was a commercial success, selling over 11 million copies worldwide. The album earned Keys five Grammy Awards in 2002, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for "Fallin'". Her second studio album, The Diary of Alicia Keys, was released in 2003 and was also another success worldwide, selling eight million copies and garnered Keys four Grammy Awards in 2005. After the release Unplugged in 2005, Keys made her first film debut in Smokin' Aces (2007) and went on to appear in The Nanny Diaries (2007). Her third studio album, As I Am, was released in 2007 and sold nearly four million copies in the United States, and won Keys an additional three Grammy Awards. The following year, Keys appeared in The Secret Life of Bees (2008), which earned her a nomination at the NAACP Image Awards.

Keys has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and has won numerous awards, including several Grammy Awards, Billboard Music Awards and American Music Awards. Together with her previous releases, she established herself as one of the best-selling artists of her time.

Biography

Early life

Keys was born Alicia Augello Cook on January 25, 1981 in a Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan, in New York City, New York. She is the daughter and only child of Teresa "Terri" Augello, a paralegal and part-time actress, and Craig Cook, a flight attendant. Keys' mother is of Irish-Italian descent, and her father is Jamaican. Her parents separated when she was two and she was subsequently raised by her mother during her formative years in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan. Keys made an appearance on The Cosby Show where she and a group of girls played the parts of Rudy Huxtable's sleepover guests in the episode "Slumber Party". She began playing the piano when she was seven, learning classical music by composers such as Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin. She enrolled in the Professional Performing Arts School of Manhattan at the age of 12, majoring in choir and writing songs at the age of 14. Keys graduated from the Professional Performing Arts School as valedictorian at the age of sixteen in three years. Although accepted to Columbia University, she dropped out after four weeks to pursue her musical career.

Keys described herself as comfortable with her biracial heritage: "I grew up in New York and, thank God, I never had to go through that in regards to, 'You're not black enough, you're not white enough,' the whole kind of white/black-mixture thing. I never had to go through that. I went through prejudices and all, surely. But I never had to battle with those two parts of me." Because of her mixed ethnicity, she felt she was able to "relate to different cultures".

1997–2002: Career beginnings and debut album

Keys signed a demo deal with Jermaine Dupri and his So So Def label. She co-wrote and recorded a song entitled "Dah Dee Dah (Sexy Thing)", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1997 blockbuster, Men in Black. The song was Keys' first professional recording; however, it was never released as a single and her record contract with Columbia Records ended after a dispute with the label. After Keys called Clive Davis, he sensed a "special, unique" artist from her performance, and later signed her to Arista Records (which has since disbanded). Keys almost chose Wilde as her stage name until her manager suggested the name Keys after a dream he had. Keys felt that name represented her both as a performer and person. Following Davis to his newly formed J Records label, she recorded the songs "Rock wit U" and "Rear View Mirror", featured on the soundtracks to the films Shaft (2000) and Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), respectively. During the early 2000s, Keys made small cameos in such television series as Charmed and American Dreams.

Keys released her first studio album, Songs in A Minor, in June 2001. It sold 235,000 copies in its first week and went on to sell over 11 million units worldwide, establishing Keys' popularity both outside and inside the United States, where she became the best-selling new artist and best-selling R&B artist of 2001. The album's first single, "Fallin'", spent six weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The album's second single, "A Woman's Worth", peaked at number three on the same chart.

In October 2002, Songs in A Minor was reissued as Remixed & Unplugged in A Minor, including eight remixes and seven unplugged versions of some of the songs from the original. The album led Keys to win five awards at the 44th Grammy Awards: Song of the Year, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, and Best R&B Song for "Fallin'", Best New Artist, and Best R&B Album; "Fallin'" was also nominated for Record of the Year. Keys became the second female solo artist to win five Grammy Awards in a single night, following Lauryn Hill at the 41st Grammy Awards. In the same year, she collaborated with Christina Aguilera for the latter's upcoming album Stripped on a song entitled "Impossible", which Keys wrote, co-produced, and provided with background vocals.

2003–2006: The Diary of Alicia Keys and Unplugged

Keys followed up her debut with The Diary of Alicia Keys, released in December 2003. The album was hailed by critics and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling over 618,000 copies its first week of release, making it the largest first week's sales for a female artist in 2003. It went on to sell 4.4 million copies in the United States and eight million copies worldwide, becoming the sixth biggest-selling album by a female artist and the second biggest-selling album by a female R&B artist. The singles "You Don't Know My Name" and "If I Ain't Got You" both reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and the third single, "Diary", entered the top ten. The fourth single, "Karma", was less successful on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number twenty. "If I Ain't Got You" became the first single by a female artist to remain on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for over a year.

Keys won Best R&B Video for "If I Ain't Got You" at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards; she performed the song and "Higher Ground" with Lenny Kravitz and Stevie Wonder. The following year, she won her second consecutive award for Best R&B Video for the video "Karma". Keys performed "If I Ain't Got You" and then joined Jamie Foxx and Quincy Jones in a rendition of "Georgia on My Mind", the Hoagy Carmichael song made famous by Ray Charles in 1960 at the 2005 Grammy Awards. That evening, she won four Grammy Awards: Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "If I Ain't Got You", Best R&B Song for "You Don't Know My Name", Best R&B Album for The Diary of Alicia Keys, and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals" for "My Boo" with Usher. She was also nominated for Album of the Year for The Diary of Alicia Keys, Song of the Year for "If I Ain't Got You", Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "Diary" (featuring Tony! Toni! Toné!), and Best R&B Song for "My Boo".

Keys performed and taped her installment of the MTV Unplugged series in July 2005 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. During this session, Keys added brand-new arrangements to her original songs such as "A Woman's Worth" and the funk-driven "Heartburn", and performed a few choice covers. Part of Keys' audience also included her guest performers; she collaborated with rappers Common and Mos Def on "Love It or Leave It Alone", reggae artist Damian Marley on "Welcome to Jamrock", and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine on a cover of The Rolling Stones' 1971 "Wild Horses". In addition to this, she had a cover of "Every Little Bit Hurts", previously recorded by singers such as Aretha Franklin and Brenda Holloway, Keys also premiered two new original songs: "Stolen Moments", which she co-wrote with producer Paul L. Green, and "Unbreakable", the album's lead single, which peaked at number four and number thirty-four on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and the Hot 100 respectively. It was more successful on the Billboard Hot Adult R&B Airplay, where it stayed at number one for eleven weeks in late 2005.

The session was released on CD and DVD in October 2005. Simply titled Unplugged, the album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart with 196,000 units sold in its first week of release. The album sold one million copies in the United States and two million copies worldwide. The debut of Keys' Unplugged was the highest debut for an MTV Unplugged album since Nirvana's 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York and the first Unplugged by a female artist to debut at number one. The album received four nominations at the 2006 Grammy Awards: Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Unbreakable", Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for "If I Was Your Woman", Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for her rendition of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's classic "If This World Were Mine" with Jermaine Paul, Best R&B Song for "Unbreakable", and Best R&B Album. She also won three NAACP Image Awards that same year: Outstanding Song and Outstanding Music Video for "Unbreakable" and Outstanding Female Artist. In October 2006, she played the voice of Mommy Martian in the "Mission to Mars" episode of the children's television series The Backyardigans, in which she sang an original song, "Almost Everything Is Boinga Here".

2007–present: Film debut and As I Am

Keys made her film debut in early 2007 in the crime film Smokin' Aces, co-starring as an assassin named Georgia Sykes opposite Ben Affleck, Ray Liotta, Common, Andy García, Taraji P. Henson, Jeremy Piven and Ryan Reynolds. Keys received much praise from her co-stars in the film; Reynolds said that Keys was "so natural" and that she would "blow everybody away". In the same year, Keys earned further praise for her second film, The Nanny Diaries, based on the 2002 novel of the same name by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. She co-starred alongside Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney. She also guest starred as herself in the "One Man Is an Island" episode of the drama series Cane.

Rolling Stone magazine reported in December 2005 that Keys and her long-term songwriting partner, Kerry "Krucial" Brothers, would start working seriously on the album in the later half of 2006. After returning from a three-week trip after almost suffering from a breakdown, Keys "hated" everything she wrote for the album and started again. Starting in late 2006, Keys worked on her third studio album, As I Am. In an interview with MTV in early 2007, she said the album was "coming together incredibly". She went on to say, "I am in love with this album. It's very fresh and new."

As I Am was released in November 2007 and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 742,000 copies in its first week. It gained Keys her largest first week sales of her career and became her fourth consecutive number one album, tying her with Britney Spears for the most consecutive number-one debuts on the Billboard 200 by a female artist. The week became the second largest sales week of 2007 and the largest sales week for a female solo artist since singer Norah Jones' album Feels like Home in 2004. In its second week, the album sold 349,000 copies, selling over one million copies in two weeks. The album sold nearly four million copies in the United States and has been certified three-time platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Keys received five nominations for As I Am at the 2008 American Music Award and ultimately won two. The album's lead single, "No One", peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, becoming Keys' third and fifth number-one single on each chart, respectively. The album's second single, "Like You'll Never See Me Again", was released in late 2007 and peaked at number twelve on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The album's third single, "Teenage Love Affair", peaked at number three on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. She released the fourth single, "Superwoman", which peaked at number 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number twelve on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.

"No One" earned Keys the awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song at the 2008 Grammy Awards. Keys opened the ceremony singing Frank Sinatra's 1950s song "Learnin' the Blues" as a "duet" with archival footage of Sinatra in video and "No One" with John Mayer later in the show. Keys performed "Teenage Love Affair" at the BET Awards '08 on June 24, where she also performed 1990s female R&B hits with their original performers: "Weak" with SWV, "Hold On" with En Vogue, and "Waterfalls" with TLC, SWV, and En Vogue. Keys also won Best Female R&B Artist during the show. Keys, along with The White Stripes' guitarist and lead vocalist Jack White, recorded a theme song to Quantum of Solace, the first duet in Bond soundtrack history. In 2008, Keys was ranked in at number 80 the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists. She also starred in The Secret Life of Bees, a film adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's acclaimed 2003 bestseller novel of the same name alongside Jennifer Hudson and Queen Latifah, released in October 2008 via Fox Searchlight. Keys received a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards. Keys earned an award for "Superwoman" Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the 2009 Grammy Awards.

In a 2008 interview with Blender magazine, Keys allegedly said "'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other, 'gangsta rap' didn't exist" and went on to say that it was created by "the government". The magazine also claimed she said that Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. were "essentially assassinated, their beefs stoked by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing." Keys later wrote a statement clarifying the issues and saying her words were misinterpreted. Later that year, Keys was criticized by anti-smoking campaigners after billboard posters for her forthcoming concerts in Indonesia featured a logo for the A Mild cigarette brand sponsored by tobacco firm Philip Morris. She apologized after discovering that the concert was sponsored by the firm and asked for "corrective actions". In response, the company withdrew their sponsorship.

Keys is expected to play a 1940s biracial piano child prodigy, Philippa Schuyler, in an upcoming film entitled Compositions in Black and White. It is based on a 1995 biographical book of the same name by Kathryn Talalay. "The challenge, in order to actually be able to play classical piano as a woman of mixed race, was by far more than I could ever imagine", Keys said, "That's what intrigued me about that role." The biopic will tell the difficult tale of Schuyler's controversial career, love-hate relationship with her mother, and the black community, her second career as a writer, and her eventual death in a helicopter accident. "Her story is very deep, even up to the point where the relationship between her and her mother gets very strained and she chooses to go to Europe and pass as a Spanish woman in order to be able to play, in order to be able to live a more normal life", Keys said, adding that she and Halle Berry hoped to start shooting in early 2008, but has not been filmed to date. "As of right now, we're still in the first, second draft of the script", she said, "So a little bit of time—at least a year."

Musical style

Keys began playing classical music on the piano at the age of seven. She majored in choir at the age of 12 and began writing songs at the age of 14. Being an accomplished pianist, she incorporates piano on majority of her songs and often writes about love and heartbreak. She was inspired by several musicians, including Prince, Nina Simone, Barbra Streisand, Marvin Gaye and Quincy Jones. Keys' style is rooted in gospel and vintage soul music, improved by bass and programmed drumbeats. She heavily incorporates classical piano and soul into her music, but began experimenting with genres, including pop and rock, in her third studio album, As I Am. Patrick Huguenin of the New York Daily News stated that her incorporation of classical piano riffs contributed to her breakout success. Jet magazine states she "thrives" by touching her fans with "piano mastery, words and melodious voice". The Independent described her style as consisting of "crawling blues coupled with a hip-hop backbeat", noting that her lyrics "rarely stray from matters of the heart".

Having a contralto vocal range, critics call Keys' voice strong, raw and impassioned. Others feel that her voice is emotionally manufactured at times. Keys' songwriting is often criticized for lack of depth, calling her writing abilities limited. Her lyrics have been called generic, clichéd and that her songs are simple and revolve are generalities. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune feels that she " around for multi-format hits rather than trying to project any sort of artistic vision". Gregory Stephen Tate of The Village Voice, on the other hand, compared Keys' writing and production to 1970s music.

Joanna Hunkin of The New Zealand Herald reviewed one of Keys' performances, where Kylie Minogue also attended. She described Minogue's reaction to Keys' performance, saying "it was obvious she was just as much of a fan as the 10,000 other people at Vector Arena". She went on to say that Minogue was "the original pop princess bowing down to the modern-day queen of soul". Hunkin characterized Keys' opening performance as a "headbanging, hip-gyrating performance" and her energy as "high-octane energy most bands save for their closing finale". At the end of her two-hour performance, fans "screamed, stomped and begged for a second encore". Hillary Crosley and Mariel Concepcion of Billboard magazine noted that her shows are "extremely coordinated" with the audience's attention span "consistently maintained". The show ended with a standing ovation and Keys "proved that a dynamic performance mixed with superior musicianship always wins".

Business ventures

In 2004, Keys released her novel Tears for Water: Songbook of Poems and Lyrics, a collection of unreleased poems from her journals and lyrics. The title derives from one of her poems, "Love and Chains" from the line: "I don't mind drinking my tears for water." She said the title is the foundation of her writing because "everything I have ever written has stemmed from my tears of joy, of pain, of sorrow, of depression, even of question". The book went on to sale over $500,000.

Keys opened a recording studio in Long Island, New York called The Oven Studios, which she co-owns with her production and songwriting partner Kerry "Krucial" Brothers. The studio was designed by renowned studio architect John Storyk of WSDG, designer of Jimi Hendrix' Electric Lady Studios. Keys and Brothers are the co-founders of KrucialKeys Enterprises, a production and songwriting team who assisted Keys in creating her award-winning albums as well as create music for other artists.

Keys and manager Jeff Robinson signed a film production deal to develop live-action and animated projects with Disney. Their first film will be a remake of the 1958 comedy Bell, Book and Candle and will star Keys as a witch who casts a love spell to lure a rival's fiancé. Keys and Robinson also formed a television production company called Big Pita. Their first project will be a UPN television series inspired by Keys' experiences as a biracial child growing up in New York. Keys will be an executive producer of the series and has received a script commitment from the network. Keys and Robinson will develop live-action and animated projects from their company, Big Pita and Little Pita, with Keys as producer, thespian, banner spearheading soundtrack and music supervision.

She starred in "Fresh Takes", a commercial micro-series created by Dove Go Fresh, which premiered during The Hills on MTV from March to April 2008. The premiere celebrated the launch of new Dove Go Fresh. She also signed a deal as spokesperson with Glacéau's VitaminWater to endorse the product, and was in an American Express commercial for the "Are you a Cardmember?" campaign.

Personal life

Throughout her career, Keys has been rumored to be romantically involved with Kerry Brothers, Jr.; other times, she has been portrayed as lesbian. In response, she said, "I will never come clean on my private life. I don't think anybody deserves to know, except myself and the person that I love and the people that I love." After Swizz Beatz announced his separation from his wife, rumors began to circulate that he committed infidelity with Keys. He later dismissed the rumors, stating that he and his wife were "moving on". She has expressed her feelings with regard to starting a family after the age of 30: "I want to give myself the opportunity to grow as a woman and as someone creative." She is also an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

In 2006, Keys nearly suffered a breakdown. Her grandmother had passed away and her family was heavily dependent on her. She felt she needed to "escape" and went to Egypt for three weeks. She explained: "That trip was definitely the most crucial thing I've ever done for myself in my life to date. It was a very difficult time that I was dealing with, and it just came to the point where I really needed to—basically, I just needed to run away, honestly. And I needed to get as far away as possible."

Philanthropy

Keys is the co-founder and Global Ambassador of Keep a Child Alive, a non-profit organization that provides medicine to families with HIV and AIDS in Africa. Keys and U2 lead singer Bono recorded a cover version of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush's "Don't Give Up", in recognition of World AIDS Day 2005. Keys and Bono's version of the song was retitled "Don't Give Up (Africa)" to reflect the nature of the charity it was benefiting. She visited African countries such as Uganda, Kenya and South Africa to promote care for children affected by AIDS. Her work in Africa was documented in the documentary Alicia in Africa: Journey to the Motherland and was available in April 2008.

Keys has also donated to Frum tha Ground Up, a non-profit organization that aids children and teenagers with scholarships. She performed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as part of the worldwide Live 8 concerts to raise awareness of the poverty in Africa and to pressure the G8 leaders to take action. In 2005, Keys performed on ReAct Now: Music & Relief and Shelter from the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast, two benefit programs that raised money for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. In July 2007, Keys and Keith Urban performed The Rolling Stones' 1969 song "Gimme Shelter" at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey at the American leg of the Live Earth concerts.

Keys performed Donny Hathaway's 1973 song "Someday We'll All Be Free" at the America: A Tribute to Heroes televised benefit concert following the September 11 attacks. She participated in the Nobel Peace Prize Concert which took place at the Oslo Spektrum in Oslo, Norway, on December 11, 2007, along with other various artists. She also recorded a theme song for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. She joined Joss Stone and Jay-Z on the effort, which served as a theme song for Obama's campaign.

Discography

Studio albums

• Songs in A Minor (2001)
• The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003)
• As I Am (2007)

Live albums

• Unplugged (2005)

Filmography

Films

Television

Notes

 a: The episode became the only time Keys was credited under her real name.

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Further reading

• Keys, Alicia (2001). Songs in A Minor. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 0634037765.
• Keys, Alicia (2004). The Diary of Alicia Keys. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 0634077643.
• Keys, Alicia (2004). Tears for Water: Songbook of Poems and Lyrics. G. P. Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0425205606.
• Keys, Alicia (2006). Unplugged. Hal Leonard Corporation. ISBN 1423408225.
• Keys, Alicia (2006). How Can I Keep from Singing?: Transforming the Lives of African Children and Families Affected by AIDS. Umbrage. ISBN 1884167608.

External links

• Official website
• Alicia Keys at IMDb

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• Alicia Keys
• 1981 births
• American actor-singers
• American composers
• American contraltos
• American female singers
• American film actors
• American music arrangers
• American music video directors
• American philanthropists
• American pianists
• American record producers
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• American soul keyboardists
• American soul singers
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• Grammy Award winners
• J Records artists
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• Living people
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• People of mixed Black African-European ethnicity
• Rhythm and blues pianists