Alicia was interviewed on the red carpet of the 2008 Michael Strahan/Dreier LLP Charity Golf Tournament Pre-Party by Michael Strahan himself. You can watch the video here.

When we first heard Alicia Keys’ velvet voice and masterful piano strokes in 2001, she was a beautiful tomboy singing about falling in and out of love. Hers was a pure, unapologetic sound — authentic, magical, enriched by yesterday — that returned vintage soul to its place in the pantheon of music.

With three studio albums, 11 Grammys and 20 million in sales and a butterfly-like metamorphosis into an elegant woman, no one could rightfully expect much more from Keys. But this prodigy-turned-superwoman is on a mission. Even as her latest CD, “As I Am,” churns out hits, Keys is working on something much bigger, something she believes is her responsibility as a global citizen. (more…)

In an interview with Essence Magazine LL Cool J was asked:

What about the exploitation of women or video vixens?

Females in hip-hop need to stick to their guns. Women have the power to decide whether they want to keep their clothes on and be classy. I think Mary J. Blige and Alicia Keys have done a great job of that. It’s also important for people not to judge. You never know what drives someone to do something, so before you start calling these video girls tacky, people need to not be so condescending. Again, at the end of the day if they all stick together and say they don’t want to be portrayed a certain way they have the power to do that.

*Music producer Swizz Beatz sat down with MTV News to discuss rumors that an affair with R&B superstar Alicia Keys broke up his marriage to R&B singer Mashonda. Swizz says the only “affair” having to do with Keys was the “Teenage Love Affair” remix he produced featuring LL Cool J. Reports of anything more salacious with the singer – as suggested in stories posted on MediaTakeOut.com and in the pages of Hip Hop Weekly – are simply not true.

“That sh** just looks like drama,” he told MTV of the media outlets. “They got another big name involved. No, I’m not doing [any] f***ing interviews. Only thing I’m commenting on is music-related. I don’t comment on my personal life. Why start now? You start commenting on that sh**, then they start twisting it out. I’m not gonna speak about nothing. They [gave Mashonda] two pages in Hip Hop Weekly. She didn’t even say nothing about Alicia. They blew it up on MediaTakeout.com. They flipped that into some other sh**. (more…)

Alicia Keys wants to follow in the footsteps of Angelina Jolie and adopt a brood of multi-racial children. The singer insists she loves kids and working alongside South African orphans in 2006 charity movie We Are Together made her broody to have children of her own.

But the 28-year-old insists motherhood is on the backburner for now, while she pursues her singing career. Speaking to WENN at a special screening of the movie in New York City on Thursday night, Keys said, “I’ve always loved kids. Kids are so important. It’s important to nurture and spend time with them and listen to them.

“I’m not ready to be a mom. But (adoption) is something that is important to consider. That’s what I really admire about Angelina. I think it’s beautiful the way she embraces children of the world.” And she insists she would like to create a family of different cultures, like Jolie: “We are all one. We’re not as separate as we oftentimes think. So I possibly would (adopt), when I’m more in the motherhood stage of my life.”

A friend of Ms. Keys since high school, Vice used his spectacular and undeniable flair for fashion to take Alicia from her days of braids and fedoras to the sleek sophistication we see today. Even as he was preparing outfits for Alicia Keys’ next video, he took a moment to talk to The Fashion Bomb on how he got his start.

Wouri always had a fashionable eye. “In high school I was the kid with one green sock and one blue sock because I was wearing blue and green.” He went to college for fashion journalism, but after too many boring lectures on Plato and the philosophy of style, he decided to follow his true passion. “I started making clothes for student groups. When I came home during the summer, I worked as an intern at Giorgio Armani.” He followed his Armani internship with several more with prominent stylists. He came to style for Alicia after reconnecting post high school. He says, “I used to tell Alicia that I would be a huge stylist and she would be a big singer. I told her I would be her stylist, and we laughed. But now you see how things came around…” (more…)

Alicia Keys has always gone about music differently. When she made her bow in 2001, the R&B singer-songwriter did so casually dressed and behind a piano when many of her peers were up, singing and dancing, often in suggestive attire.

In the seven years since - even as she evolved stylistically from somewhat conservative to cover model - Keys has crafted a consistent body of work that has not only sold tens of millions, but has lyrically and musically stood apart from the “Lollipop(s)” and “Sexy Can
I(s)” she shares space with atop the charts. (more…)

Six years and a couple hundred concerts later, Alicia Keys has not forgotten her disastrous 2002 Essence Music Festival debut.

A deafening, Superdome-sized silence greeted her the night of July 4, 2002. Nothing — not her hype man, the opening “Alicia Keys Overture,” her flurry of piano, song and dance, a tepid cover of the Doors’ “Light My Fire” — connected with the discriminating Essence audience. In a final insult, the curtain dropped before she performed “Fallin’,” her breakthrough hit. (more…)

At 27 and with just three studio albums to her credit, Alicia Keys is already inspiring a legion of younger female artists. One only has to watch American Idol, where aspiring divas sing her hits over and over, as proof of that.
And it appears the poetic songbird is just getting started. On top of Grammy wins, multiplatinum sales and a burgeoning acting career, Keys is a co-founder of Keep a Child Alive, a nonprofit organization that provides medicine to HIV/AIDS-affected children and families in Africa.

(more…)

Alicia graces the cover of latest Essence magazine issue.

Hip-hop may be dead, but R&B is alive and kicking with artists Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys and Jill Scott holding it down

Rounding up three multiplatinum, Grammy-winning chart-toppers is no small feat, especially when they�re stationed in different cities and different time zones. Did we mention that one of them was on tour (Mary), one had just come off tour (Jill), and the other was between tours (Alicia)?

(more…)