Alicia Keys

Alicia Augello Cook, known professionally as Alicia Keys, was born on January 25, 1981, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The only child of Teresa Augello, a paralegal and part-time actress, and one of three children of Craig Cook, a flight attendant, Keys was raised by her mother after her father left when she was two years old. Her mother is of Italian and Irish or Scottish descent, with paternal grandparents who immigrated from Sciacca, Sicily, and Lamezia Terme, Calabria; her father is African American. Keys has spoken about feeling comfortable with her multiracial heritage, describing an ability to relate to different cultures. She was named after her Puerto Rican godmother. The two lived in a one-bedroom apartment at Manhattan Plaza, where her mother often worked three jobs to support them.

Growing up in Hell's Kitchen, Keys was regularly exposed to street violence, drugs, and prostitution from an early age. She has credited those experiences with sharpening her focus and preparing her for the pressures of the music industry. She began wearing gender-neutral clothing and cornrows during this period, and carried a homemade knife for protection. Keys has attributed her early maturity in large part to her mother, who both depended on her to be responsible and worked to provide her with as many opportunities as possible.

Keys developed a love of music in early childhood, influenced by the jazz records her mother played on Sunday mornings, including recordings by Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong. She began classical piano lessons by age seven, practicing six hours a day using the Suzuki method and studying composers including Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, and Satie. She was particularly drawn to melancholic and romantically expressive compositions. After seeing the film Philadelphia, Keys wrote her first song at age 12, composing it on the piano as a tribute to her departed grandfather. She was signed by Columbia Records at 15, and after disputes with that label, moved to J Records to release her debut studio album.

That debut, Songs in A Minor, arrived in 2001 to critical acclaim and commercial success, selling over 12 million copies worldwide. It contained the Billboard Hot 100 number-one single "Fallin'" and earned five awards at the 44th Annual Grammy Awards. Her second album, The Diary of Alicia Keys, followed in 2003, selling eight million units worldwide and producing the US top-five singles "You Don't Know My Name" and "If I Ain't Got You," along with four additional Grammy Awards. A 2004 duet with Usher, "My Boo," became her second number-one single in the United States.

Keys released her first live album, Unplugged, in 2005, making her the first female artist to have an MTV Unplugged project debut at the top of the Billboard 200. Her third studio album, As I Am, arrived in 2007 and sold seven million units worldwide, yielding her third Billboard Hot 100 number-one single, "No One." That same year she made her film debut in the action-thriller Smokin' Aces, and in 2008 she recorded "Another Way to Die" with Jack White as the theme song for the James Bond film Quantum of Solace. Her fourth album, The Element of Freedom, released in 2009, peaked atop the UK Albums Chart and sold four million copies worldwide, supported by the singles "Doesn't Mean Anything," "Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart," and "Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready)." That year she also appeared on Jay-Z's single "Empire State of Mind," which became her fourth number-one hit in the United States.

Her fifth album, Girl on Fire, released in 2012, was her fourth non-consecutive album to top the Billboard 200. Her sixth album, Here, followed in 2016, peaking at number two on the chart. Her seventh and eighth studio albums, Alicia and Keys, released in 2020 and 2021 respectively, produced the singles "Show Me Love" featuring Miguel, "Underdog," "Lala," and "Best of Me." In 2022, she released Santa Baby, a Christmas album and her first independent release.

In 2023, Keys wrote, composed, and co-produced Hell's Kitchen, her first Broadway musical. The show, which draws on her upbringing in the Manhattan neighborhood that shares its name, received a Tony Award nomination for Best Musical in 2024 and won two Tony Awards. Throughout her recording career, Keys has sold over 90 million records worldwide. Her accolades include 17 Grammy Awards, 17 NAACP Image Awards, 12 ASCAP Awards, an award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame, an award from the National Music Publishers Association, the Producers and Engineers Wing Award, and the Global Impact Award from the Recording Industry Association of America. Billboard named her the Top Artist of the 2000s in the R&B and Hip-Hop category, and Time included her on its list of 100 most influential people in both 2005 and 2017. VH1 placed her on both its 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and 100 Greatest Women in Music lists.

Beyond music, Keys co-founded the nonprofit HIV organization Keep a Child Alive in 2003, for which she serves as Global Ambassador.