Manhattan, New York. She was raised by a single mother, Teresa Augello, who work as legal assistant By not to continue using make up. That sounds a bit shallow or awkward, but the truth is that an artist basically lives on his/her image, and what she did was saying “No” “I want you to give me a recognition for my talent, instead of the way I look” And gee she did it!
Early life
Born on January 25th, 1981 in Manhattan, New York. She was raised by her mother. A single lady called Teresa Augello, who worked as legal assistant and flight attendant. Her mother was half Italian, and half English with Irish and Scottish background.
Her parents separated when she was 2 years old.
First T.V appearance
In 1985, she made her first T.V appearance on the Bill Cosby Show. During her childhood she took music and dance classes from her mother. She also took piano lessons since she was seven, and she later registered on the Professional Arts School at the age of 12, specializing in choir.
She started to write her own songs at the of 14. She titled her first song “Butterflyz” She got her degree at 16. Then she enrolled on Columbia University, but she did not start her studies there because she decided to pursue a career on music.
First album and immediate success
She worked hard on her first album until she was discovered by Clive Davis in Arista Records. On June 26th, 2001 they released Song in A Minor. This album got five Grammy Awards and most of the songs were written by Alicia Keys. Her second album came into life in 2003, under the name of The Diary of Alicia Keys. She got 8 nominations for the Grammy Awards. On October 2005, a MTV Acoustic Unplugged dedicated to Alicia was released. This album was number one bestselling in USA, and got four new nominees for the Grammy Award.
New Albums
On November 13th, 2007, she published As I am. With the song No One, as single. It reached the top of the Billboard list just ten hours after it started to play on radio stations in USA. In ninety days, she got 4o million views on YouTube. She had a controversy with Amy Winehouse due to a song of hers was chosen instead of Amy’s for A James Bond’s saga Quantum of Solace. Amy stated that she would release her song to show that it was better than Alicia’s.
With a total Net worth of $ 70 million, Alicia Keys she performed in 2008 on the film, The Secret Life of Bees, along with other important actors such as Jennifer Hudson, Queen Latifah, or Dakota Fanning. At the end of the year 2009, she published her fifth album, The Element of Freedom. In 2012, her studio album Girl On Fire was released.
She has made duets with artist such as Bono from U2, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z.
