Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981), better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American recording artist, musician and actress. She was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began to playclassical music on the piano. She attended Professional Performing Arts School and graduated at 16 as valedictorian. She later attendedColumbia 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 12 million copies worldwide. She became the best-selling new artist and best-selling R&B artist of 2001. 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. The album garnered her an additional four Grammy Awards in 2005. Later that year, she released her first live album,Unplugged, which debuted at number one in the United States. She became the first female to have an MTV Unplugged album to debut at number one and the highest since Nirvana in 1994.
Keys made guest appearances on several television series in the following years, beginning with Charmed. She made her film debut inSmokin' Aces and went on to appear in The Nanny Diaries in 2007. Her third studio album, As I Am, was released in the same year and sold six million copies worldwide, earning Keys an additional three Grammy Awards. The following year, she appeared in The Secret Life of Bees, which earned her a nomination at the NAACP Image Awards. She released her fourth album, The Element of Freedom, in December 2009, which became Keys' first chart-topping album in the United Kingdom. Throughout her career, Keys has won numerous awards and has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and 25 million singles, which makes her one of the best selling artists of all time. Billboard magazine named her the top R&B artist of the 2000–2009 decade, establishing herself as one of the best-selling artists of her time. In 2010, VH1 included Keys on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
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. 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.
Keys collaborated with the record producer Swizz Beatz to write and produce "Million Dollar Bill" for Whitney Houston's seventh studio album, I Look to You. Keys had approached Clive Davis for permission to submit a song for the album. Keys also collaborated with the recording artist Jay-Z on the song "Empire State of Mind" from his 2009 album, The Blueprint 3. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 and became her fourth number-one single on that chart.At the 53rd Grammy Awards ceremony, "Empire State of Mind" won Best Rap/Sung Collaboration and Best Rap Song. It had also been one of the five nominees for Record of the Year.
The following month, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honored Keys with the Golden Note Award, an award given to artists "who have achieved extraordinary career milestones". She collaborated with Spanish recording artist Alejandro Sanz for "Looking for Paradise", which topped the Hot Latin Songs chart, this was Keys' first number one on all three charts, which also made her the first African-American of non-Hispanic origin to reach #1 on the Hot Latin Tracks.Keys released her fourth studio album, The Element of Freedom, in December 2009. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 417,000 copies in its first week.[As part of the promotional drive for the album, she performed at the Cayman Island Jazz Festival on December 5, the final night of the three day festival which will be broadcast on Black Entertainment Television(BET).The album's lead single, "Doesn't Mean Anything", has peaked at number 60 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 14 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. Keys was ranked as the top R&B recording artist of the 2000–2009 decade by Billboard magazine and ranked at number five as artist of the decade, while her song, "No One", was ranked at number six on the magazine's songs of the decade.[103][104][105] In the United Kingdom, The Element of Freedom became Keys' first album to top the UK Albums Chart.The album's second single, "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart", was released in November 2009 and peaked at number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The album's third single, "Put It in a Love Song", featruing Grammy-winner Beyoncé, peaked at number 60 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, the music video was filmed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has been postponed several times, and later it was confirmed that Alicia Keys' team made a decision not to release the video. The album's fourth single, "Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down", was released in February 2010 and peaked at number 55 on theBillboard Hot 100 and number 76 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. The album's fifth single, "Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)", was released in May 2010 and peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number one on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, for twelve consecutive weeks and became the single most successful album, becoming Keys' eighth number-one single on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart. The album's sixth and final single, "Wait Til You See My Smile", was released in December 2010, it failed to enter the U.S. charts.
In May 2009, Swizz Beatz announced that he and Keys were romantically involved,and in May 2010, a representative for Keys and Swizz Beatzconfirmed that they were engaged and expecting a child together.During the time of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the couple took part of a union and had the unborn child blessed in a Zulu ceremony, which took place in the Illovo suburb of South Africa.Keys and Swizz Beatz were married on the French island of Corsica on July 31, 2010.On October 14, 2010, Keys gave birth to a son, Egypt Daoud Ibarr Dean, in New York City.
In June 2011, Songs in A Minor was re-released as deluxe and collector's editions in commemoration of its 10th anniversary To support the release, Keys embarked on a four-city promotional tour, entitled Piano & I: A One Night Only Event With Alicia Keys, featuring only her piano. Keys is also set to co-produce the Broadway premiere of Stick Fly, which will open in December 2011.On September 23, she performed on iHeart Music Festival and sang her new song "A Place Of My Own", which is present in her fifth studio album.On September 26, 2011, was the premiere of Project 5, short film that marks the debut of Alicia Keys as a director. It is a documentary of five episodes that tell stories of five women who were victims of breast cancer and how it affected their lives. The production also has co-direction of the actressesJennifer Aniston, Demi Moore and film director Patty Jenkins.[117]
[edit]Musical style
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An accomplished pianist, Keys incorporates piano into a majority of her songs and often writes about love, heartbreak and female empowerment. She has cited several musicians as her inspirations, including Prince, Nina Simone, Barbra Streisand, Marvin Gaye,Quincy Jones, Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder.Keys' style is rooted in gospel and vintage soul music, supplemented by bass and programmed drumbeats.] She heavily incorporates classical piano with R&B, soul and jazz into her music. She began experimenting with other genres, including pop and rock, in her third studio album, As I Am,transitioning from neo soul to a 1980s and 1990s R&B sound with her fourth album, The Element of Freedom.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".Blender magazine referred to her as "the first new pop artist of the millennium who was capable of changing music."
Keys has a vocal range of a contralto, which spans three octaves Often referred to as the "Princess of Soul",Keys has been commended as having a strong, raw and impassioned voice others feel that her voice is "emotionally manufactured" at times and that she pushes her voice out of its natural range.Keys' songwriting is often criticized for lack of depth, which has led to her writing abilities being called limited.] Her lyrics have been called generic, clichéd and that her songs revolve around generalities.Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune feels that she "[pokes] around for multi-format hits rather than trying to project any sort of artistic vision".Diversely, Jon Pareles of Blender magazine stated that the musical composition of her songs makes up for their lyrical weakness,while Gregory Stephen Tate of The Village Voice 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'sattention span "consistently maintained". The show ended with a standing ovation and Keys "proved that a dynamic performance mixed with superior musicianship always wins".Throughout her career, Keys has won numerous awards and is listed on the Recording Industry Association of America's best-selling artists in the United States, with 15 million certifiedalbums.She has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and has established herself as one of the best-selling artists of her time.
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