Alicia Keys
Alicia Keys

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

Celeb Hot List

Which Stars Have the Most Buzz?

People Hot List - Which Stars Have the Most Buzz?

  1. Kate Middleton Kate Middletonnochange
  2. Prince William Prince Williamnochange
  3. Kim Kardashian Kim Kardashiannochange
  4. Jennifer Garner Jennifer Garnernochange
  5. Ben Affleck Ben Afflecknochange

The Hot List shows the most buzzed about celebs of the moment as measured by reader activity on People.com

See All 25 Hot Listers

Biography

Alicia Keys

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.
Alicia Keys

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).
Alicia Keys

2001

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."

See Full Bio