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.

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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)?

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On April 30, 2008, Alicia appeared on MTV’s TRL. We have added photos to the gallery. She talked about some of her teenage favorites and they were Pecan Twirls, Nirvana, Reebok 5411’s, and the movie Grease.

Here is a transcript of Alicia Keys’ recent teleconference from Paris with several journalists.:

Q Since I work in Minneapolis, I have two Minnesota questions for you. First of all, how did it feel to be name-checked by Bob Dylan in his song “Thunder on the Mountain”?

A. I loved that, I’ve got to say it. It definitely was a bit of a shock. I wasn’t really expecting that. And I didn’t quite believe it, honestly. My friend John Mayer was the first person that told me about it. And I was like, “Stop it, John. Why?” I didn’t understand why. And so obviously after I found it was definitely the truth, it was just a great honor. You know he’s one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and I thought that for me to live in his songbook is pretty damn cool.  (more…)

Alicia Keys has released the following statement regarding her recent interview with Blender Magazine:

“I feel it is necessary to clarify the comments that were made during my recent Blender magazine interview since they have been misrepresented.

Anyone who knows me and my character, knows that I am not a conspiracy theorist or, by implication, a racist. My comments about ‘gangsta rap’ were in no way trying to suggest that the government is responsible for creating this genre of rap music. The point that I was trying to make was that the term was over-sloganized by some of the media causing reactions that were not always positive. Many of the ‘gangsta rap’ lyrics articulate the problems of the artists’ experiences and I think all of us, including our leaders, could be doing more to address these problems including drugs, gang violence, crime, and other related social issues.

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