Alicia J. Augello-Cook (born January 25, 1981), professionally known as Alicia Keys, is an American R&B, soul, and neo soul singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress. Keys has sold over thirty million albums worldwide and has won numerous awards, including eleven Grammy Awards, seventeen Billboard Music Awards, and three American Music Awards.

Keys' debut album Songs in A Minor was a worldwide success, selling over eleven million copies, and received five Grammy Awards in 2002, with Keys winning Best New Artist and also Song of the Year for "Fallin'". Her second studio album, The Diary of Alicia Keys, was released in 2003 and quickly became another great success worldwide selling about nine million copies and garnered Keys four Grammy Awards in 2005. After the successful Unplugged release in 2005, Keys returned to the music scene with her third studio album, As I Am, released in 2007, which has sold nearly six million copies and established her as one of the best-selling artists of the decade.

Early Life: Keys was born in the Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem, in New York City, New York, the daughter and only child of Teresa "Terria" Augello, a paralegal and part-time actress, and Craig Cook, a flight attendant. Keys' mother is of Irish and Italian descent, and her father is Jamaican. Keys describes herself as comfortable with her biracial heritage: "I grew up in New York, and thank God, I never had to go through that in regards to, 'You're not black enough, you're not white enough,' the whole kind of white/black-mixture thing. I never had to go through that. I went through prejudices and all, surely. But I never had to battle with those two parts of me."

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". 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.

Songs in A Minor 2001: Selling over 235,000 copies in its first week (more than 50,000 of those on its first day), Songs in A Minor, released on June 5, 2001, went on to sell over ten million units worldwide, and established Keys' popularity both outside and inside the U.S., where she became the best-selling new artist of 2001 (as well as the best-selling R&B artist). The album's first single, "Fallin'", gained radio airplay on many different radio formats and spent six weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Keys performed Donny Hathaway's 1973 song "Someday We'll All Be Free" at the America: A Tribute to Heroes televised benefit concert following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Another single from Songs in A Minor, "A Woman's Worth", made the top ten in the U.S. as well. The album led Keys to win five Grammy Awards in 2002: Song of the Year, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, and Best R&B Song for "Fallin'", Best New Artist, and Best R&B Album; "Fallin'" was also nominated for Record of the Year. Keys thus became only the second female solo artist to win five Grammy Awards in a single night (following Lauryn Hill in 1999). On October 22, 2002, Songs in A Minor was reissued as Remixed & Unplugged in A Minor, including eight remixes and seven unplugged versions of some of the songs from the original.

Critical reviews of the album were mostly positive. Keys' work had a sound similar to 1970s soul singers such as Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, and Stevie Wonder along with hip hop influences like those apparent in neo soul artists such as Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, and D'Angelo.

By that time, Keys wrote, produced, played the piano, and sang background for Christina Aguilera's song "Impossible", from the latter's 2002 album Stripped.

The Diary of Alicia Keys 2003: Keys followed up her debut with The Diary of Alicia Keys, released on December 2, 2003. The album was hailed by critics, and debuted at number one in the U.S., selling over 618,000 copies its first week of release, becoming the sixth biggest-selling album by a female artist and the second biggest-selling album by a female R&B artist. To date, it has sold nine million copies worldwide.

The singles "You Don't Know My Name" and "If I Ain't Got You" both reached the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and another single, "Diary", entered the top ten. The classical/hip hop-flavored "Karma" was less successful, peaking at number twenty on the Billboard Hot 100 but more successful on the Top 40 Mainstream peaking at number three. "If I Ain't Got You" became the first single by a female artist to remain on the sixty-three-year-old Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for more than one year, surpassing Mary J. Blige's "Your Child", which had remained on the chart for forty-nine weeks. Keys went on to become the best-selling female R&B artist of 2004.

At the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards, Keys won "Best R&B Video" for "If I Ain't Got You", and also led Lenny Kravitz and Stevie Wonder in their version of Wonder's "Higher Ground". In 2005, Keys won her second consecutive award for Best R&B Video, this time for the video for "Karma".

At the 2005 Grammy Awards, Keys performed the album's second single, "If I Ain't Got You", and then joined Jamie Foxx and Quincy Jones in a rendition of "Georgia on My Mind", the Hoagy Carmichael song made famous by Ray Charles in 1960. That evening, she won four Grammy Awards: Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "If I Ain't Got You", Best R&B Song for "You Don't Know My Name", Best R&B Album for The Diary of Alicia Keys, and Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals" for "My Boo" with Usher. She was also nominated for Album of the Year for The Diary of Alicia Keys, Song of the Year for "If I Ain't Got You", Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "Diary" (featuring Tony! Toni! Toné!), and Best R&B Song for "My Boo".

Unplugged 2005: Keys performed and taped her installment of the MTV Unplugged series on July 14, 2005 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. During this live session, Keys added brand-new arrangements to her original songs such as "A Woman's Worth" and the funk-driven "Heartburn", and performed a few choice covers. Part of Keys' audience also included her guest performers; she collaborated with rappers Common and Mos Def on "Love It or Leave It Alone", reggae artist Damian Marley on "Welcome to Jamrock", and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine on a cover of The Rolling Stones' 1971 "Wild Horses". In addition to this, she had a cover of "Every Little Bit Hurts", previously recorded by singers such as Aretha Franklin and Brenda Holloway, Keys also premiered two new original songs: "Stolen Moments", which she co-wrote with producer Paul L. Green, and "Unbreakable", the album's lead single, which peaked at number four and number thirty-four on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and the Hot 100 respectively. It was more successful on the Billboard Hot Adult R&B Airplay, where it stayed at number one for eleven weeks in late 2005. The session was released on CD and DVD on October 11, 2005. Simply titled Unplugged, the album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart with 196,000 units sold in its first week of release. So far the album has sold one million copies in the United States and two million copies worldwide. The debut of Keys' Unplugged was the highest debut for an MTV Unplugged album since Nirvana's 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York and the first Unplugged by a female artist to debut at number one. The album received four nominations at the 2006 Grammy Awards: Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Unbreakable", Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for "If I Was Your Woman", Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for her rendition of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's classic "If This World Were Mine" with Jermaine Paul, Best R&B Song for "Unbreakable", and Best R&B Album. It also won three NAACP Image Awards that same year: Outstanding Female Artist, Outstanding Song for "Unbreakable", and Outstanding Music Video for "Unbreakable".

As I Am 2007: 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.

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. As I Am became Keys fourth consecutive number one album, tying her with Britney Spears for the most consecutive number-one debuts on the Billboard 200 by a female artist. 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 in 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. The album's third single was "Teenage Love Affair", which peaked at number three on the R&B chart after having debuted at number sixty. Keys performed the song at the BET Awards '08 on June 24, where she also performed '90s female R&B hits with their original performers: "Weak" with SWV, "Hold On" with En Vogue, and "Waterfalls" with TLC, SWV, and En Vogue. Keys also won Best Female R&B Artist during the show.

Keys has confirmed that "Superwoman" will be the 4th and final single from the album As I Am.

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.

Alicia Keys and the White Stripes' Jack White will record the theme song to Quantum of Solace, the 22nd James Bond film, which hits U.S. theaters Nov. 7. The song, "Another Way to Die", will be the first duet in Bond soundtrack history. White wrote and produced the song, and also will play drums. The soundtrack to the movie will be released Oct. 28. The score for the film will be composed by David Arnold. Amy Winehouse and Leona Lewis had previously been rumored as the vocalists for the latest Bond theme. Keys and Jack White have been lined up to appear on a special Bond-themed X Factor live show in Ocober 2008. The pair have agreed to give a performance of their duet 'Another Way to Die'.

Keys also is preparing to record a theme song for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. Keys who joins Joss Stone and Jay-Z on the effort, was approached by the presidential nominee according to The Sun to record a track that will serve as a theme song for his campaign. Keys and Jay-Z also reported to be penning songs for the project. --Courtesy of Wikipedia