Everything about Alica Keys totally explained
Alicia J. Augello-Cook (born
January 25 1981), better known by her
stage name Alicia Keys, is an
American R&B,
soul and
neo soul singer-songwriter,
pianist and
actress, who has sold over 25 million albums worldwide as of 2007, and has won
numerous awards, including eleven
Grammy Awards, seventeen
Billboard Music Awards, three
American Music Awards, and fourteen
NAACP Image Awards.
Her debut album,
Songs in A Minor was a worldwide success and received the record of five Grammy Awards in a single night in 2002.
Early life
Keys was born in the
Manhattan neighborhood of
Harlem, in
New York City,
New York, to Teresa "Terri" Augello, a
paralegal and part-time actress, and Craig Cook, a
flight attendant. Keys' mother is of
Irish and
Italian descent, and her father is
Jamaican. Keys describes 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."
Keys' parents separated during her early childhood, and she was subsequently raised by her mother during her formative years in
Hell's Kitchen, also in Manhattan. In 1985, Keys and a group of other girls played the parts of
Rudy Huxtable's sleepover guests in an episode of
The Cosby Show called "Slumber Party". She began playing the
piano when she was seven, learning
classical music by composers such as
Beethoven,
Mozart, and her favorite,
Chopin. Keys almost chose Wilde as her stage name at age sixteen until her manager suggested the name Keys after a dream he had. Keys felt that name represented her both as a performer and person.
Keys graduated from the
Professional Performing Arts School, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, as
valedictorian at the age of sixteen in only three years. Although accepted to
Columbia University with a partial scholarship, she decided to drop out and pursue her musical career. Keys signed a demo deal with
Jermaine Dupri and his
So So Def label, then distributed by
Columbia Records. 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 quickly. Keys later met
Clive Davis, who signed her to
Arista Records, which has since disbanded. 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. Keys then released her debut album,
Songs in A Minor.
Music career
Songs in A Minor (2001)
Selling over 235,000 copies in its first week (more than 50,000 of those on its first day),
Songs in A Minor, released on
June 5,
2001, went on to sell over ten million units worldwide, and established Keys' popularity both outside and inside the U.S., where she became the best-selling new artist of 2001 (as well as the best-selling R&B artist). The album's first single, "
Fallin'", gained radio
airplay on many different radio formats and spent six weeks at number one on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100. Keys performed
Donny Hathaway's 1973 song "
Someday We'll All Be Free" at the televised benefit concert following the
September 11, 2001 attacks. Another single from
Songs in A Minor, "
A Woman's Worth", made the top ten in the U.S. as well. The album led Keys to win five
Grammy Awards in
2002: "
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 thus become only the second female solo artist to win five Grammy Awards in a single night (following
Lauryn Hill in
1999). On
October 22,
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 album.
Critical reviews of the album were mostly positive. Keys' work had a sound similar to 1970s soul singers such as
Curtis Mayfield,
Marvin Gaye, and
Stevie Wonder along with
hip hop influences like those apparent in
neo soul artists such as
Lauryn Hill,
Erykah Badu, and
D'Angelo.
By that time, Keys wrote, produced, played the piano, and sang background for
Christina Aguilera's song "Impossible", from the latter's 2002 album
Stripped.
The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003)
Keys followed up her debut with
The Diary of Alicia Keys, released on
December 2,
2003. The album was hailed by critics, and debuted at number one in the U.S., selling over 618,000 copies its first week of release, becoming the sixth biggest-selling album by a female artist and the second biggest-selling album by a female R&B artist. To date, it has sold nine million copies worldwide.
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 another single, "
Diary", entered the top ten. The classical/hip hop-flavored "
Karma" was less successful, peaking at number twenty on the
Billboard Hot 100 but more successful on the
Top 40 Mainstream peaking at number three. "If I Ain't Got You" became the first single by a female artist to remain on the sixty-three-year-old
Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for more than one year, surpassing
Mary J. Blige's "Your Child", which had remained on the chart for forty-nine weeks. Keys went on to become the best-selling female R&B artist of 2004.
At the 2004
MTV Video Music Awards, Keys won "
Best R&B Video" for "If I Ain't Got You", and also led
Lenny Kravitz and
Stevie Wonder in their version of Wonder's "
Higher Ground". In 2005, Keys won her second consecutive award for "Best R&B Video", this time for the video for "Karma".
At the
2005 Grammy Awards, Keys performed the album's second single, "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. 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".
Unplugged (2005)
Keys performed and taped her installment of the
MTV Unplugged series on
July 14 2005 at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music. During this live 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'd 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 on
October 11 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. So far the album has sold one million copies in the United States and two million copies worldwide.
As I Am (2007)
Since late 2006, Keys worked on her third studio album,
As I Am—whose title was confirmed in a red-carpet interview at the 2007
BET Awards on
June 26—, released on
November 13,
2007. Keys talked to
MTV in early 2007 about the album: "It's coming together incredibly. I'm in love with this album. It's very fresh and new".
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.
As I Am debuted at number one on the
Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 742,000 copies, gaining Keys the second largest sales week of 2007 and the largest sales week for a female solo artist since
Norah Jones' 2004 album
Feels Like Home, and also set a record as Keys' largest sales week of her career.
As I Am became Keys 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. In addition, the album also debuted at number one on the
United World Chart selling 876,000. Since then,
As I Am has sold over one million copies in two weeks of its debut, selling 359,000 copies in the second week. The lead single "
No One" debuted at number seventy-one on the
Billboard Hot 100, and has since peaked at number one, becoming Keys' third number one on the chart, and was also her fifth number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. Furthermore, the song earned Keys the awards for "Best Female R&B Vocal Performance" and "Best R&B Song" at the
2008 Grammy Awards on
February 10. Keys opened the ceremony singing
Frank Sinatra's 1950s song "
Learnin' the Blues" as a "duet" with archival footage of Sinatra in video. Later on, she performed "No One" with
John Mayer. The album's second single, "
Like You'll Never See Me Again", released in late 2007, reached the top fifteen of the
Billboard Hot 100, and secured another R&B chart-topper for Keys. The album's third single was
Teenage Love Affair, after it debuted on the
Billboard R&B chart at 60 which has now peaked at 17. The video was released on April 23, 2008, with a
Spike Lee's School Daze Theme.
Keys sang the outro to John Mayer's song "
Gravity" on his album
Continuum and in a surprise appearance with him at his sold-out show at
Madison Square Garden on
February 28,
2007.
Keys has opened a new 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
,
Keys has confirmed that "Superwoman" will be the 4th and final single from the album
As I Am.
She let it slip during a recent interview with
Essence Magazine. She has also said that her 4th as yet untitled studio album will be released in the early summer of 2009!
Promotion for Superwoman has already started on ABC's MGM . There are also rumors that she might be performing this new single live on next months BET Awards.
Film and television career
TV
During the early 2000s, Keys made small cameos in such television series as
Charmed and
American Dreams. In early 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 the song "Almost Everything Is Boinga Here". Keys guest starred as herself in the "
One Man Is an Island" episode of the drama series
Cane, first aired on
November 6 2007.
Alicia Keys starred in "Fresh Takes," a micro-series created by
Dove go fresh, aimed at giving women a fresh take on life in their twenties. The series, premiered during "The Hills" on MTV in
March to
April 2008. The series followed three girlfriends as they embark on their adult lives juggling the pressures of being a 20-something woman – career, relationship, beauty, family and friends – all intensified by their own critical inner voice. Amidst these pressures, friendship, humor and honesty help them realize a wider definition of success and ultimately feel beautiful. This premiere celebrated the launch of new Dove go fresh – a fragrance-driven product collection.
Film
Keys made her big-screen 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 Garcia,
Taraji P. Henson,
Jeremy Piven and
Ryan Reynolds. Keys received much praise from her co-stars in the film; Reynolds said that Keys had "natural" acting ability as he was surprised she hadn't starred in films before.
Keys earned further praise for her second film outing,
The Nanny Diaries—based on the 2002
novel of the same name by
Emma McLaughlin and
Nicola Kraus—, released on
August 24 2007, in which she co-stars alongside
Scarlett Johansson and
Chris Evans as Lynette, Johansson's character Annie's best friend.
Brooklyn's
Kingsborough Community College was used to film the college graduation scene for the film.
Keys and her long-term manager Jeff Robinson have signed a first-look film production deal to develop live-action and animated projects with
Disney, Variety reports. Their first film, a remake of the 1958 comedy
Bell, Book and Candle, will star Keys as a witch who casts a love spell to lure a rival's fiancé. Keys and Robinson have also formed a television production company called Big Pita. Their first project will be a
CW Network TV series inspired by Keys' experiences as a biracial child growing up in New York, similar to the network's
Everybody Hates Chris. Keys and Robinson said that'll develop live-action and animated projects at their company, Big Pita, Little Pita, with Keys participating as producer, thesp, banner spearheading soundtrack, and music supervision.
Keys has signed to star in a film adaptation of
Sue Monk Kidd's acclaimed 2003 bestseller
The Secret Life of Bees alongside
Jennifer Hudson and
Queen Latifah, expected to be released in 2008 via
Fox Searchlight.
Gina Prince-Bythewood will direct the film, whose filming is to begin in January in
North Carolina.
Keys will also play 1940s biracial piano
child prodigy Philippa Schuyler in an upcoming film entitled
Composition in Black and White. It is based on the 1995 biographical book of the same name by Kathryn Talalay and follows the story of Philippa Schuyler. "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 hope to start shooting in early 2008. "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".
Philanthropy
Besides being a musician, Keys is also a
philanthropist. She is a spokeswoman for
Keep a Child Alive, a non-profit organization that provides life-saving
AIDS medicines directly to children and families with
HIV/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 2006. Keys and Bono's version of the song was retitled "Don't Give Up (Africa)" to show the two musicians' support for helping to raise awareness of people living with HIV and AIDS and acknowledging the twenty-five million
Africans (forty million people worldwide) living with the disease.
Keys has visited African countries such as
Uganda,
Kenya, and
South Africa to promote care for children affected by AIDS. Keys, the global ambassador and co-founder of Keep a Child Alive, jet in on a four-day working visit in
Masaka, Uganda on
April 10,
2006 to bolster the HIV/AIDS crusade and give a ray of hope to families and children devastated by the scourge. Keys visited sites funded by the organization "and brought footage home to the American public to encourage them to do more to help", according to a KACA statement. Throughout her visit, a film crew followed and documented the progress at both of these facilities for American news outlets.
Keys is also a spokeswoman for
Frum tha Ground Up, a charity devoted to inspiring, encouraging, and motivating American youths to achieve success on all levels. Keys also participated in other
humanitarian efforts in 2005 by performing at several exclusive concerts and television shows. On
July 2, Keys performed in
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, as part of the worldwide
Live 8 concerts. The mission of the concerts was to raise awareness of the on-going poverty in Africa and to pressure the
G8 leaders to take action by doubling aid, canceling debt, and delivering trade justice for Africa. In August 2005, Keys performed on, a benefit program shown on music video channels to raise money for those affected by
Hurricane Katrina. The following month, Keys performed at, another Hurricane Katrina benefit concert.
Keys is an honorary member of
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.
On
July 7,
2007, Keys and
Keith Urban performed The Rolling Stones' 1969 hit "
Gimme Shelter" at
Giants Stadium in
East Rutherford,
New Jersey at the
American leg of the
Live Earth concerts.
Keys participated at the
Nobel Peace Prize Concert which took place at the
Oslo Spektrum in
Oslo,
Norway, on
December 11,
2007, together with a variety of artists. The concert was broadcast to over one hundred countries.
Endorsements
- Alicia Keys is a spokesperson for Dove's Go Fresh product and starred in a five-episode microseries which was transmitted on Monday's during the MTV The Hills (TV Series) commercial breaks.
- Alicia Keys recently signed a deal as spokesperson with Glacéau's Vitamin Water that's worth more than $25 million.
Personal life
The press reported in 2005 that Keys was attempting to reconcile with her father. However, Keys denied this and said her words were misinterpreted.
In a recent interview with
Blender Magazine she 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." She also said:
"Tupac and Biggie were essentially assassinated, their beefs stoked "by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing."
However, Keys wrote a statement clarifying the issues and saying her words were misinterpreted.
Mentions in popular culture
Keys was referenced in
Bob Dylan's song "Thunder on the Mountain", from his 2006 album
Modern Times. The second verse of the song has the following lines:
I was thinkin' 'bout Alicia Keys, couldn't keep from crying
When she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line
I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be
I been looking for her even clear through Tennessee
Keys was also referenced in "Think About You" by Luther Vandross from his album
Dance with My Father. In this song, Vandross says:
Bought a pillow for my room (I thought about you)
Heard Alicia sing a tune (I thought about you)
It sends my rocket to the moon
Every time I think about you
Discography
Albums
2001: Songs in A Minor
2003: The Diary of Alicia Keys
2005: Unplugged
2007: As I Am
Number-one singles
Filmography
Films
Television
Books
Tours
2001: American Tour
2001/2002: European Tour
2004: Asian/Australian Tour
2004: Verizon Ladies First Tour (with Beyoncé and Missy Elliott)
2004: European Tour
2005: The Diary Tour (U.S.)
2008: As I Am Tour (Europe and U.S.)
Awards
Further Information
Get more info on 'Alica Keys'.
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