Alicia Keys
Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981),[3][4][5][6][7] known professionally as Alicia Keys, is an American singer and songwriter. A classically trained pianist, Keys began composing songs when she was the age of 12 and was signed by Columbia Records at the age of 15. After disputes with the label, she signed with J Records to release her debut studio album, Songs in A Minor (2001). Met with critical acclaim and commercial success, the album sold over 12 million copies worldwide and won five awards at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. It contained the Billboard Hot 100-number one single "Fallin'." Her second album, The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003) was met with continued success, selling eight million units worldwide and spawning the singles "You Don't Know My Name", "If I Ain't Got You", and "Diary" (featuring Tony! Toni! Toné!).[8] Its release earned an additional four Grammy Awards.[9]
Alicia Keys
January 25, 1981
Lellow
- Singer
- songwriter
- pianist
- author
- actress
1985–present
2
- Vocals
- piano
Her 2004 duet with Usher, "My Boo", became her second number-one single. Alicia's first live album, Unplugged (2005), spawned the single "Unbreakable" and made her the first female artist to have an MTV Unplugged project debut atop the Billboard 200. Her third album, As I Am (2007), sold seven million units worldwide and yielded her third Billboard Hot 100-number one single. "No One." In 2007, Keys made her film debut in the action-thriller Smokin' Aces, and performed the theme song to the James Bond film Quantum of Solace with her single "Another Way to Die" (with Jack White) the following year.[10] Her fourth album, The Element of Freedom (2009), peaked the UK Albums Chart, sold four million copies worldwide, and was supported by the singles "Doesn't Mean Anything", "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart", and "Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)." That same year, her 2009 single "Empire State of Mind" (with Jay-Z) became her fourth number-one in the United States. Her fifth album, Girl on Fire (2012), became her fourth non-consecutive album to peak the Billboard 200 and was supported by its lead single of the same name; her sixth album, Here (2016), peaked at number two on the chart. Her seventh and eighth studio albums, Alicia (2020) and Keys (2021), spawned the singles "Show Me Love" (featuring Miguel), "Underdog", "Lala" and "Best of Me". Her first independent release, Santa Baby (2022), was a holiday album. In 2023, she wrote, composed and co-produced her first off-Broadway musical, Hell's Kitchen.
Keys has sold over 90 million records worldwide, making her one of the world's best-selling music artists. She was named by Billboard as the Top Artist of the 2000s in the R&B/Hip-Hop category,[11] and placed tenth on their list of Top 50 R&B/Hip-Hop Artists of the Past 25 Years. She has received numerous accolades in her career, including 16 Grammy Awards, 17 NAACP Image Awards, 12 ASCAP Awards, and an award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame and National Music Publishers Association. VH1 included her on their 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and 100 Greatest Women in Music lists, while Time has named her in their 100 list of most influential people in 2005 and 2017. Keys is also acclaimed for her humanitarian work, philanthropy, and activism. She co-founded the nonprofit HIV/AIDS-fighting organization Keep a Child Alive in 2003, for which she serves as Global Ambassador.
Career[edit]
1985–1997[edit]
In 1985, Keys appeared on The Cosby Show as Maria, one of Rudy's slumber-party friends. She had no lines.
In 1994, manager Jeff Robinson met 13-year-old Keys, who participated in his brother's youth organization called Teens in Motion.[41][52] Robinson's brother had been giving Keys vocal lessons in Harlem.[42] His brother had talked to him about Keys and advised him to go see her, but Robinson shrugged it off as he had "heard that story 1,000 times". At the time, Keys was part of a three-member band that had formed in the Bronx and was performing in Harlem.[41][49] Robinson eventually agreed to his brother's request, and went to see Keys perform with her group at the Police Athletic League center in Harlem. He was soon taken by Keys, her soulful singing, playing contemporary and classical music and performing her own songs.[41][44] Robinson was excited by audiences' reactions to her. Impressed by her talents, charisma, image, and maturity, Robinson considered her to be the "total package", and took her under his wing.[47][49][52] By this time, Keys had already written two of the songs that she would later include on her debut album: "Butterflyz" and "The Life".[47][49]
Robinson wanted Keys to be informed and prepared for the music industry, so he took her everywhere with him, including all the meetings with attorneys and negotiations with record labels, while the teenager often became disgruntled with the process.[41] Robinson had urged Keys to pursue a solo career, as she remained reluctant, preferring the musical interactions of a group. She took Robinson's advice after her group disbanded, and contacted Robinson who in 1995 introduced her to A&R executive Peter Edge.
Robinson and Edge helped Keys assemble some demos of songs she had written and set up a showcases for label executives.[25][41][44] Keys performed on the piano for executives of various labels, and a bidding war ensued.[23][44] Edge was keen to sign Keys himself but was unable to do so at that time due to being on the verge of leaving his present record company, Warner Bros. Records, to work at Clive Davis' Arista Records.[23][41][53] During this period, Columbia Records had approached Keys for a record deal, offering her a $26,000 white baby grand piano; after negotiations with her and her manager, she signed to the label, at age 15. Keys was also finishing high school, and her academic success had provided her opportunity for scholarship and early admission to university.[23][41][53] That year, Keys accepted a scholarship to study at Columbia University in Manhattan.[25] She graduated from high school early as valedictorian, at the age of 16, and began attending Columbia University at that age while working on her music.[23][47] Keys attempted to manage a difficult schedule between university and working in the studio into the morning, compounding stress and a distant relationship with her mother. She often stayed away from home, and wrote some of the most "depressing" poems of her life during this period. Keys decided to drop out of college after a month to pursue music full-time.[25][38][47]
Columbia Records had recruited a team of songwriters, producers and stylists to work on Keys and her music. They wanted Keys to submit to their creative and image decisions.[25] Keys said they were not receptive to her contributions and being a musician and music creator.[47][48] While Keys worked on her songs, Columbia executives attempted to change her material; they wanted her to sing and have others create the music, forcing big-name producers on her who demanded she also write with people with whom she was not comfortable.[12][42] She would go into sessions already prepared with music she had composed, but the label would dismiss her work in favor of their vision.[48] "It was a constant battle, it was a lot of -isms", Keys recalled. "There was the sexism, but it was more the ageism – you're too young, how could you possibly know what you want to do? – and oh God, that just irked me to death, I hated that."[25] "The music coming out was very disappointing", she recalled. "You have this desire to have something good, and you have thoughts and ideas, but when you finish the music it's shit, and it keeps on going like that."[44] Keys would be in "perpetual music industry purgatory" under Columbia, while they ultimately "relegated [her] to the shelf".[49] She had performed "Little Drummer Girl" for So So Def's Christmas compilation in 1996,[49] and later co-wrote the song "Dah Dee Dah (Sexy Thing)" for the Men in Black (1997) film soundtrack, the only released recording Keys made with Columbia.[38][42]
Keys "hated" the experience of writing with the people Columbia brought in. "I remember driving to the studio one day with dread in my chest," she recalled.[23] Keys said the producers would also sexually proposition her.[12][29][47] "It's all over the place. And it's crazy. And it's very difficult to understand and handle," she said.[47] Keys had already built a "protect yourself" mentality from growing up in Hell's Kitchen, which served her as a young teen then in the industry having to rebuff the advances of producers and being around people who "just wanted to use [her]".[29][40] Keys felt like she could not show weakness.[29] Executives at Columbia also wanted to manufacture her image, with her "hair blown out and flowing", short dresses, and asking her to lose weight; "they wanted me to be the same as everyone else," Keys felt.[23] "I had horrible experiences," she recalled. "They were so disrespectful ... I started figuring, 'Hey, nothing's worth all this.'"[12] As months passed, Keys had grown more frustrated and depressed with the situation, while the label requested the finished tracks.[23][44][47] Keys recalled, "it was around that time that I realized that I couldn't do it with other people. I had to do it more with myself, with the people that I felt comfortable with or by myself with my piano."[47] Keys decided to sit in with some producers and engineers to ask questions and watch them technically work on other artists' music.[44] "The only way it would sound like anything I would be remotely proud of is if I did it," Keys determined. "I already knew my way around the keyboard, so that was an advantage. And the rest was watching people work on other artists and watching how they layer things."[44]
Her partner Kerry "Krucial" Brothers suggested to Keys she buy her own equipment and record on her own.[47] Keys began working separately from the label, exploring more production and engineering on her own with her own equipment.[44] She had moved out of her mother's apartment and into a sixth-floor walk-up apartment in Harlem with Brothers, where she fit a recording studio into their bedroom and worked on her music.[47] Keys felt being on her own was "necessary" for her sanity. She was "going through a lot" with herself and with her mother, and she "needed the space"; "I needed to have my own thoughts, to do my own thing."[44] Keys and Brothers later moved to Queens and together they turned the basement into KrucialKeys Studios.[47] Keys would return to her mother's house periodically, particularly when she felt "lost or unbalanced or alone". "She would probably be working and I would sit at the piano," she reminisced.[47] During this time, she composed the song "Troubles", which started as "a conversation with God", working on it further in Harlem. Around this time the album "started coming together", and she composed and recorded most of the songs that would appear on her album.[36][44][47] "Finally, I knew how to structure my feelings into something that made sense, something that can translate to people,", Keys. "That was a changing point. My confidence was up, way up."[44] The different experience reinvigorated Keys and her music.[47] While the album was nearly completed, Columbia's management changed and more creative differences emerged with the new executives. Keys brought her songs to the executives, who rejected her work, saying it "sounded like one long demo". They wanted Keys to sing over loops,[44] and told Keys they will bring in a "top" team and get her "a more radio-friendly sound". Keys would not allow it; "they already had set the monster loose", she recalled. "Once I started producing my own stuff there wasn't any going back."[47] Keys stated that Columbia had the "wrong vision" for her. "They didn't want me to be an individual, didn't really care," Keys concluded. "They just wanted to put me in a box."[12] Control over her creative process was "everything" to Keys.[48]
Keys had wanted to leave Columbia since they began "completely disrespecting [her] musical creativity".[23] Leaving Columbia was "a hell of a fight," she recalled. "Out of spite, they were threatening to keep everything I'd created even though they hated it. I thought I'd have to start over again just to get out, but I didn't care."[23] Keys said in 2001: "It's been one trial, one test of confidence and faith after the next." To Keys, "success doesn't just mean that I'm the singer, and you give me my 14 points, and that's all. That's not how it's going to go down."[54] Edge, who was by that time head of A&R at Arista Records,[25] said, "I didn't see that there was much hands-on development at Columbia, and she was smart enough to figure that out and to ask to be released from her contract, which was a bold move for a new artist."[47] Edge introduced Keys to Arista's then-president, Clive Davis, in 1998.[25][55]
1998–2002: Breakthrough with Songs in A Minor[edit]
Robinson and Keys, with Davis's help, were able to negotiate out of the Columbia contract and she signed to Arista Records in late 1998.[42][47][53] Keys was also able to leave with the music she had created.[23] Davis gave Keys the creative freedom and control she wanted, and encouraged her to be herself.[12][55] Keys said of Davis's instinct: "he knows which artists are the ones that maybe are needing to craft their own sound and style and songs, and you just have to let an artist go and find that space. And I think he somehow knew that and saw that in me and really just let me find that."[49] After signing with Davis, Keys continued honing her songs.[12] Keys almost chose Wilde as her stage name at the age of 16 until her manager suggested the name Keys after a dream he had. She felt that name embodied her both as a performer and person.[56] Keys contributed her songs "Rock wit U" and "Rear View Mirror" to the soundtracks of the films Shaft (2000) and Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001).[57][58]
In 2000, Davis was ousted from Arista, and the release of Keys's album was put on hold. Later that year, Davis formed J Records and immediately signed Keys to the label.[23] "He didn't try to divert me to something else," Keys said on following Davis to his new label. He understood that she wants to be herself and not "made into what somebody else thinks I should be."[38]
Keys played small shows across America, performed at industry showcases for months and then on television.[44][55] Davis thought "pop stations might feel she's too urban. Urban might feel she's too traditional", and as he felt Keys was a "compelling, hypnotic performer" best experienced in person, he had Keys perform her music to different crowds in different places to spread the word.[41][44][55] "I created opportunities for those who saw her to spread the word", Davis recalled. "She is her own ambassador."[41] Davis wanted to "let people discover her, and you can only do that with a few artists."[25][51] Keys later performed on The Tonight Show in promotion for her upcoming debut.[44] Davis wrote a letter to Oprah asking her to have Keys, Jill Scott, and India.Arie perform on her show to promote new women in music.[44] Oprah booked Keys the day she heard her song "Fallin'", her debut single.[12][41] Keys performed the song on Oprah's show the week prior to the release of her debut album.[49] "Fallin'", released as a single in April, went to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and stayed atop the chart for six consecutive weeks.[49][59] Ebony magazine wrote that at the time "the music that was pumping on the airwaves was hip-hop and rap – not Alicia's unique blend of classical meets soul, meets hip-hop, meets, well, Alicia. What could have been a recipe for disaster ... turned into the opportunity of a lifetime."[41] Keys as an artist since her early days, Davis said, "does her own thing. She has set out her own vision. That's the way it is for artists of her ilk ... They don't try to fit in. They try to establish their own paths ... [she has] sure natural instinct and sure vision" and "a respect for musical history."[25][41]
Songs in A Minor, which included material that Columbia Records had rejected, was released on June 5, 2001,[47][49] to critical acclaim.[62][63][64] Musically, it incorporated classical piano in an R&B, soul and jazz-fused album.[65] Jam! described the music as "old-school urban sounds and attitude set against a backdrop of classical piano and sweet, warm vocals".[66] USA Today wrote that Keys "taps into the blues, soul, jazz and even classical music to propel haunting melodies and hard-driving funk".[67] Songs in A Minor would be "lauded for its mix of traditional soul values and city-girl coolness", wrote The Guardian.[36] PopMatters wrote that "Keys's Songs in A Minor is a testament to her desire (and patience) to create a project that most reflects her sensibilities as a 20-year-old woman and as a musical, cultural, and racial hybrid."[51]
Films starred
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