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Alicia Keys: Recent News

Oct 30, 2009

Jay-Z and Alicia Keys Rock Yankee Stadium

The pair treat World Series fans – and players – to a raucous rendition of "Empire State of Mind"

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Oct 26, 2009

Jay-Z, Alicia Keys to Perform at World Series

Jun 27, 2009

Beyoncé, Top Stars Tip Their Hats to Michael Jackson

Mar 23, 2009

Alicia Keys: Snapshot

Name: Alicia Keys
Date of Birth: January 25, 1980
Birth Place: New York, N.Y.

With 2001's Songs in A Minor, Alicia Keys convinced an entire generation hooked on Britney, boy bands and backup dancers that the simplicity of a woman and her piano can have pop appeal. The 21-year-old's blend of R&B, hip hop and classical music earned her five Grammys.

Keys, who has since sold 20 million albums worldwide and rounded out her Grammy collection to nine, grew up in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen where her single mother pushed her into the arts. At 16, she left Columbia University to embark on her music professionally, eventually finding constant supporters in manager Jeff Robinson and music mogul Clive Davis, who signed her to his J Records label.

Keys, who has repeatedly appeared in PEOPLE's Most Beautiful issue, parlayed her fame into philanthropic work as an ambassador for Keep a Child Alive, which provides HIV and AIDS medicine to families in Africa.

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Alicia Keys: Five Fun Facts

Alicia Keys adopted her signature braids at 13, when she discovered that it got her through humid Manhattan summers.
Alicia Keys has a knack for featuring rappers as her love interests in her music videos: she featured Common ("Like You'll Never See Me Again"); Method Man ("If I Ain't Got You"); and Mos Def ("You Don't Know My Name").
"I'm happy that I'm not super skinny," Alicia Keys told Ebony in 2004. "Sometimes I've gotten photographs back and people have literally shaven off pieces of me, and I tell them to put it back. I'm not ashamed of what I am and that I have curves and that I'm thick."
While on the road, Alicia Keys carries "a cute pink bunny. It reminds me that not everything is so serious," she told In Style.
Bob Dylan mentions Alicia Keys in his song "Thunder on the Mountain." Keys heard the news from John Mayer, but didn't believe him until he showed up with the track: I was thinking about 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?

Alicia Keys: Biography

1980s: A Prodigy's Start
As a preschooler, Alicia Keys is singled out for her musical ability. "Her teacher, who was very much into the arts, had Alicia singing a song from Cats – at barely 4 years old," her mother Terri Augello, a professional actress, tells Ebony in 2007. Augello gets her daughter a gig on The Cosby Show (left) in March 1985 when she is 5, and enrolls her in gymnastics, piano, and ballet. "Being a single parent raising her in the city, I tried to give her every opportunity, just so she could find out what her muse was," Augello adds.
mid 1990s: Alicia's Believers
Keys, 14, meets Jeff Robinson at a Harlem PAL (Police Activities League), and he becomes her trusted friend and manager. At 16, Keys attends Columbia University, but leaves her studies for a record deal with Columbia Records. She encounters creative differences with the label, and Clive Davis, then head of Arista, buys out the 17-year-old's contract, and she follows him to his new label, J Records (from left, Robinson, Keys' mother Terri, Keys and Davis).
2001: April
Fallin' into Songs in A Minor
With producer Kerry "Krucial" Brothers, Keys find her sound and releases the piano-driven ballad "Fallin'," off her debut album Songs in A Minor. Rolling Stone says the album "unleashes neosoul's newest princess, a black woman impacted equally by hip-hop, soul, Prince and classical."