Alicia Keys (born Alicia J. Augello-Cook on January 25, 1980[2] or 1981[3)) is an American R&B, soul, and neo soul singer-songwriter, pianist, record producer, actress, music video director, philanthropist, and author who has sold over forty-one million albums and singles worldwide as of 2007, and has won numerous awards, including eleven Grammy Awards, eleven Billboard Music Awards, three American Music Awards, and fourteen NAACP Image Awards.2 a b Biography - Alicia Keys. Billboard. Retrieved on 2007-12-25.
3 a b Sony BMG Artist Alicia Keys (German). Sony BMG Germany. Retrieved on 2007-12-05 “Alicia Keys wurde am 25. Januar 1981”
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, Scottish, and Italian descent and her father is Jamaican.
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".a 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, 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.
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 am 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.
"No One" is the lead single taken from Alicia Keys' third studio album, As I Am.
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. This managed to tie Keys with Britney Spears for the most consecutive number-one debuts on the Billboard 200 by a female artist (four). 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 i
n 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.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, a production and songwriting team who assisted Keys in creating her award-winning albums as well as create music for other artists.
Keys was scheduled to perform at the Manchester Evening News Arena in Manchester, England, on February 26, 2008 in promotion of As I Am. However, she was forced to postpone the concert due to contracting laryngitis. Doctors have advised her to rest, and the concert will be rescheduled shortly
Film and television career
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.
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 had not 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 has been tapped to executively produce an upcoming TV drama. The title and airing date are presently unconfirmed. Keys and Robinson said they will 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 F
ox 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".
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
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
The press reported in 2005 that Keys was attempting to reconcile with her father. However, Keys denied this and said 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
-List of Alicia Keys awards
For me Alicia is one of the best singers in all world! She is a winner of MOTW, and I am proud to can write information about her. Thanks Alicia you are great, really great!!! Stay cooooooooooooollll.
In portuguese: Para mim a Alicia é uma das melhores cantoras do mundo! Ela é a vencedora do MOTW, e eu estou orgulhoso por poder divulgar a fantastica imagem que ela tem para as pessoas. Obrigado, Alicia, tu és muito fixe, mesmo boa(cantora, e não só)!!!
Thanks to wikipedia for this information.
For me Alicia is one of the best singers in all world! She is a winner of MOTW, and I am proud to can write information about her. Thanks Alicia you are great, really great!!! Stay cooooooooooooollll.
In portuguese: Para mim a Alicia é uma das melhores cantoras do mundo! Ela é a vencedora do MOTW, e eu estou orgulhoso por poder divulgar a fantastica imagem que ela tem para as pessoas. Obrigado, Alicia, tu és muito fixe, mesmo boa(cantora, e não só)!!!
Thanks to wikipedia for this information.
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