Alicia Keys "As She Is"

8/14/2019 Alicia Keys "As She Is"

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She is a young renaissance woman. She writes music; she arranges music, she produces music.But theres more than that, much more than that. She touches peoples hearts and souls. Her music is honest.Her music is pulsating. Her music is melodic. Walk down the street of any city in the world and youre apt to hearsomeone singing one of her songs. She is also a poet of the streets and already one of the best ambassadorsto the world that music has ever had. I would venture to say that if you took a poll of people all over the worldto choose what musician under 30, no under 40, best exemplifies the highest quality of contemporary music, shewould be the choice by a landslide. Shes learned to give back from the day she had anything to give back. HerKeep A Child Alive charity exemplifies what is clearly her mantra: Aim as high as you can and make sure youdeliver and hit the target. Clive Davis presented Keys at the 2007 NY Recording Academy Honors on September 26


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Yet her lifestyle doesnt play into thepaparazzi-feeding frenzy like so many otherstars of her generation. Shes no doubt moreaccomplished than the bald headed, druginfluenced celebutantes who find themselves

in the eye of those special kinds of hur-ricanes. For Keys, the difference is simple.You look in the mirror and check yourself .You choose how you want to be.

Certainly Alicias choices have been fueledby monumental talent, and shes chosenexactly who she wanted to be, using the tal-ent to expand emotions and awareness onmany levels. She has not used it for selfishor self-indulgent ends. Sayng that her wholelife had been in preparation for the last sixyears, this bi-racial child in a single par-ent urban household grew up with a strongrole model mother. Her mom recognizedAlicias musical gifts by the time she was five

years old. She was enrolled in ManhattansProfessional Performance Arts School,graduating valedictorian. A full scholarshipat Columbia was there, but she had to leaveearlythe music called as it had done her

whole life.With seven years of classical piano trainingbehind her, Alicia had already begun writ-ing songs at age 14. Early in her perform-ing career, she often opened shows playingTchaikovsky and has always had a particularfondness for Chopin. She seemed to breathein both the darkness and the light of thegreat classical composers, permitting themto give her extraordinary flavor as her owngifts grew.

Her musical breadth was smartly usedas a marketing tool during the promotion of her first album, and her gifts have shown upclearly on all her subsequent albums. Now

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its time for the much-anticipated third stu-dio album As I Am . This one, Alicia says,really expresses who I am. But she hastensto add that description can be said of all myalbums. They represented where she was atthe moment.

Where she was in 2001 was an unknownwith a debut album. Under the wise tutelageof J Records founder Clive Davis, Alicia wasabout to be discovered. Somewhat unusual

for the man whos been correctly telling art-ists what to do with their music for moredecades than can be remembered, Daviswisely left Alicia to her own devices for thatrst album.

Songs in A Minor , released in 2001, sold10 million copies and won five Grammys, anunprecedented feat for a new artist. In thespace of a few months she went from beingminor to major in the pantheon of recordingartists.

Where she was in 2003 was smack underthe microscope of an industry waiting to seeif shed face the horrific sophomore slumpthat often follows a brilliantly successfuldebut album. It was also the first productof Alicias that the label tried to protectfrom the Internet invasion of file sharingand piracy. The Diary of Alicia Keys didntdisappoint anyone waiting to see what theprodigious writer, producer had to say thistime around. The album was hailed by cr iticsand debuted at #1 in the U.S., selling morethan 618,000 copies its first week of release.At last count, it has sold eight million copiesworldwide. At the 2005 Grammy Awards,she performed the albums second single, If I Aint Got You, and then joined Jamie Foxxand Quincy Jones in a rendition of Georgia

on My Mind, in tribute to Ray Charles whohad died the previous year. That evening, shewon four Grammy Awards including BestR&B Album for The Diary of Alicia Keys ,Best Female R&B Vocal Performance forIf I Aint Got You and Best R&B Songfor You Dont Know My Name.

Falling under the category of breakingrecords, she stayed on the charts for morethan a year and went on to become the best-selling female R&B artist of 2004. The liveCD/DVD Unplugged appeared in 2005, fol-lowing the course of her previous releasesthat went straight to the top of the charts,giving her a three for three track record. Its

a stat not only rare but not likely to be dupli-cated.

The wait is nearly over for the entiretyof her third studio album, As I Am , set fora worldwide release on November 13 on JRecords. The reaction to the first single waswild. No One jumped all over the chartsand she knocked any other females statsinto the forget-about-it-bin. No One waswritten and produced by Keys, longtimecollaborator Kerry Krucial Brothers andDirty Harry. The Justin Francis/The SalineProject-directed video for No One recentlypremiered on national video outlets likeMTVs Big 10, BETs Heavy Rotation,


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VH1s Large Rotation and VH1Souls Soul Spotlight.

The entire process of thisalbum was different, Alicia con-fides. Id been looking hard atmyself. I decided to check myself.It had always been the style of the young talent to be in control.Id go in the studio and say thisis how the song goes and this is

how that is. This time, she saysquietly, Trying not to controlsomething was actually liberating.The album is titled As I Am , Keyssaid, because she has grown farmore open recently. I was becom-ing a very hidden person, she said.And I didnt like it.

She opened up the doors onherself with the keys to a newrecording studio in Long Island,New York called The Oven Studios,which she co-owns with her pro-duction and songwriting partnerKrucial. The studio was designedby famed studio architect JohnStoryk of WSDG, designer of Jimi HendrixElectric Lady Studios.

Keys and Krucial are also the co-foundersof KrucialKeys Enterprises, a production andsongwriting team who work on her music aswell as music for other artists. Its where shemade As I Am , the album she also describesas rebellious. She was intent on doingthings that were not expected, she said.While some of its songs reaffirm her connec-tion to 1960s and 70s soul, others push hera little closer to rock - from the Beatles toU2 - than she has been before.

Alicia showcases her songwriting and pro-ducing talents on all 13 of the albums songs,but also joins forces on several tracks notonly with Krucial but also award-winningsongwriters Linda Perry, Harold Lilly, SeanGarrett and producers Mark Batson, DirtyHarry, Swizz Beatz and Jack Splash.

Those songs include the anthemSuperwoman, which draws on gospel andthe Beatles. The song is a reminder to her-self she says. Even when Im just a mess and Im not perfect andeverythings not great and Im struggling to figure out what is what,she said, Im still a superwoman.

She feels connected to the emotion behind Like You Never SeeMe Again because I gave a lot of powerful thought to what hap-

pens when someone a person cares about is gone. Perhaps her per-sonal experience does not directly inform the song, but some timeago she put her career on hold to tend to someone who was dying.Somebody extremely close to me got very ill, she said, and I wasreally the only one that was able to help care for them. This personwas strong and my rock, and then, totally, not even able to walkwithout assistance. I had no choice but to stop.

Another soulful solid song is Sure Looks Good To Me. JRecords has been determined to keep this album out of the hands of Internet pirates and is keeping most of it under serious wraps.

Also contributing to the album is Keys friend John Mayer. Keyssang the outro to Mayers song Gravity on his album Continuumand appeared on his sold-out show at Madison Square Garden ear-lier this year.

When the album was wrapped and being prepped for release.

Keys kept visible. During FashionRocks she showcased her currentsingle, No One, transforming thesubtleties of a piano ballad to a gi-ant, stadium-rocking thrill. One of the nights most exciting duets wasthat of Alicia and Carlos Santana onhis classic Black Magic Woman.

At the MTV Video Awards, de-spite the antics of several of her less

in control contemporaries, Keysalso delivered a rousing perfor-mance (disturbed by some rockerswho had to try to bash on eachother).

While living up to the demandsfor massive tours in support of her music, Alicia has moved intothe acting arena, rst starting withsmaller roles. Her lm roles thisyear alone include a co-starring rolewith Ben Afeck in Smokin Acesand The Nanny Diaries withScarlett Johannson.

Keys and her long-term manager Jeff Robinson, founder of MBK

Management (My Brothers Keeper), havesigned a rst-look lm production deal to de-velop live-action and animated projects withDisney, with their rst effort being the remakeof the 1958 Kim Novak, James Stewart classicBell, Book and Candle. Keys and Robinsonhave also formed a television production com-pany called Big Pita/Little Pita and there is anentire slate of projects in the pipeline.

In 2005, the Berkley Publishing Groupreleased author Keys Tears for Water:Songbook of Poems and Lyrics that Keysdescribed as an opening of the journals and

notebooks she had kept throughout her life.In 2006, she touched on another subject thatdeeply affected her in the 112 page book shephotographed and wrote titled How Can IKeep from Singing? Transforming the Livesof African Children and Families Affected byAIDS.

One aspect of her life that is most importantto Alicia is her work on behalf of children. Iwent to Africa and witnessed unimaginable

thingsextreme, extreme suffering, the aids pandemic, child prostitu-tion and deathso much death. She says she couldnt just pretendlike I didnt see these things. So she joined forces with Lee Blackwhod worked 25 years on behalf of the children, and for the last fouryears their efforts have made a real difference with the organization

called Keep a Child Alive. She also bonded with Bono over humani-tarian issues and helped create the British-made documentary WeAre Together about the musical aspirations of the children of SouthAfricas Agape Orphanage. One of the culminations of that involvementwas her performance alongside the children at New Yorks CarnegieHall in an effort to bring American attention to their plight.

Alicia is also a spokewoman for Frum tha Ground Up, a charitydevoted to inspiring, encouraging, and motivating young Americansto achieve success on all levels. She recently joined former PresidentBill Clinton and others at the Apollo Theatre for a concert and con-clave on how to incorporate the principles of Giving, the title of Clintons new book, into their everyday lives.

Whether she is at the studio, on a performance stage or holding thehand of a child with AIDS, Alicia Keys has proven that she truly is aSupersinger, Superplayer and Superwoman.

This young woman whowill not conform, who willnot be pigeonholed, whounderstands the beautifulhistory of music, soulful

music, classical music, jazz,blues and hip-hop musicis proudly translating ourculture with freshness,

originality, dignity and aneye full of twinkles and re

to millions all overthe world.Clive Davis,

Chairman BMG North America

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Alicia Keys "As She Is"