Alicia keys Biography

NAME: Alicia Keys

OCCUPATION: Pianist, Singer

BIRTH DATE: January 25, 1981 (Age: 30)

EDUCATION: Professional Performance Arts School, Columbia University

PLACE OF BIRTH: New York, New York

Musician. Born Alicia Augello Cook on January 25, 1981, in New York, New York. Blending pop, gospel, R&B and soul, Keys burst onto the music scene in 2001 with her debut album Songs in A Minor.

Keys was raised by her mother, Nikki Augello, a part-time actress and paralegal. Keys began piano lessons at age 7 and Augello's dogged insistence that her daughter stick with the instrument led Keys to attend Manhattan's prestigious Professional Performance Arts School where she majored in choir. She excelled academically and was allowed to graduate at the age of 16. Keys had already attracted the attention of record company executives during her high school years, and after what amounted to a bidding war for her talents, she signed with Arista Records in 1998.

In 1999, Clive Davis, the head of Arista Records, left the company to start J Records. Keys decided to follow Davis, who had engineered the careers of such soul luminaries as Aretha Franklin, to his new label. Unlike many of her pop-music contemporaries, the precocious Keys not only sings, but writes and produces her own music.

At the 2002 Grammy Awards, Keys took home awards for Song of the Year, Best R&B Song, Best R&B Album, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, and Best New Artist. Keys fronted for fellow R&B sensation Maxwell in 2001. Her album "Diary" won her four Grammys in 2005.

In 2006, Alicia completed her first marathon, which she proudly ran in the birthplace of the sport - Greece. Also, the siren and Robinson have co-developed and cowritten an original series for the CW Network entitled "Zora".

Unbeknownst to her loyalists, Keys' foray into Hollywood isn't entirely unfamiliar territory. Inheriting acting chops from her theater mom, Keys co-starred on The Cosby Show as a friend of Rudy Huxtable when she was only four-years-old. In January 2007, the native New Yorker makes her silver screen debut in Universal Pictures' Smokin' Aces.

In July 2010, Keys married Swizz Beatz (real name: Kasseem Dean) and the couple welcomed their first child together in October 2010, a baby boy named Egypt Daoud Dean.