Click on the picture to check out 2 pictures of Alicia in the latest issue of OK! Weekly Magazine.

The National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights is happy to announce the addition of artist/humanitarian Alicia Keys and comedian/civil rights activist Margaret Cho to the panel of judges for its 2010 Contest, which asks young people across the country for their views on equality.  More information is available on the contest site.

Native Instruments today announced Alicia’s Keys, a new software that recreates Alicia Keys’ personal grand piano with outstanding authenticity and playability. Developed in close collaboration with the Grammy-winning artist, the software is used as the primary instrument on her new album and on the current world tour. Alicia’s Keys is a unique and highly affordable way for musicians of all experience levels to utilize Alicia’s acclaimed signature piano sound in their own music production, live performance, and recreational playing.

Designed as a comprehensive digital recreation of Alicia Key’s own custom Yamaha “C3 Neo” grand piano, and based on Native Instruments’ industry-leading Kontakt 4 sampler platform, Alicia’s Keys provides a soulful and intimate piano sound that perfectly accommodates R&B, soul and pop styles. The instrument was meticulously recorded in Alicia’s personal studio by her engineer Ann Mincieli and renowned sampling expert Thomas Scarbee over the course of two years, using vintage microphones and high-end outboard studio gear that produced an exquisite piano tone with supreme sonic fidelity. (Read more… )

Alicia Keys presents her new signature piano software created in collaboration with Native Instruments. Click on the picture to check out the pictures from the photoshoot for the software. You can pre-order the software here now but it’s not officially released till April 1, 2010.

We’ll never catch Alicia Keys chowing down at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King or Taco Bell.

The Grammy winner, 30, works too hard maintaining her figure with myfitstream.com creator and president Josh Zitomer, who also trains celebrities including Jessica Simpson, Eva Mendes, John Mayer, Bono, Tobey Maguire, and Common.

The Empire State of Mind singer despises an abdominal exercise he prescribes called “The Ab Test.”

“I can’t even describe it, it’s so awful,” she says. (Read more… )

All sorts of intriguing myths and legends swirl around Alicia Keys, whose steely focus upon her career has given rise to rumours of control-freak divadom and whose CIA-like secrecy about her relationships has led to speculation about her sexuality. The classically influenced R&B singer/songwriter, who grew up in a notoriously tough area of New York, is such a hit-making phenomenon that she has sold 30 million records and won 12 Grammy Awards since her 2001 album debut Songs in A Minor.

By her own admission, she usually goes on the road with a 75-strong entourage. So nothing has quite prepared me for the homely approachability of the smiling, open-faced girl sitting with me in a dressing room at BBC Television Centre in West London.

It’s dusk, the time when people are beginning to unwind, yet Alicia still has one more performance that evening: on the Jonathan Ross show (the third time she has been a guest of the flirtatious presenter, which indicates she’s not nearly as uptight as her reputation would suggest). But she seems daisy-fresh and laid-back in skin-tight black leather trousers, offering me a Malibu rum. I decide not to indulge, as does she, so this interview comes to you stone cold sober. (Read more… )

Click on the picture to see pictures of Alicia’s first stop of the Freedom Tour in Ottawa, Ontario Canada. And read below a review of the show.

Alicia Keys don’t do diva. The 12-time Grammy Award-winning soul singer kicked off her Element of Freedom tour at Scotiabank Place last night, and while the short but sweet show was fabulous, it wasn’t because of Keys’ champagne lifestyle and multiple gown changes.

Last night, Keys let her music do it for her in one of the most dazzling, theatrical musical experiences Scotiabank Place has seen in a long time.
(Read more… )

Fans expecting Alicia Keys to deliver a low-key concert from the piano bench were in for a surprise at Scotiabank Place on Friday. The Grammy-winning Princess of Soul made a Britney-like entrance in a cage that was strung with chains and surrounded by a lighting rig that looked like the walls of a prison, the barbed wire outlined in white lights.

Her hair long and wild, Keys gyrated in sparkly silver pants and when she broke free from the cage, there was no mistaking the message of empowerment. The splashy intro settled into Love Is Blind, and clearly reflected the theme of her fourth and latest album, The Element of Freedom. (Read more… )

Last October 21, Alicia Keys held “The Element of Freedom Lecture & Performance Series” at New York University’s Skirball Center. During the event, she gave NYU students — most of which were aspiring songwriters –- solid advice and discussed her songwriting process, before wowing the crowd with an exclusive showcase, which included tracks from her new album “The Element of Freedom”, as well as a few other Keys classics. Talia Soghomonian caught up with the inspired Miss Keys two days later in the East Village.

There is a lot more pop, 80s-inspired elements on this album, like Prince…
Ooh, I love that! I love him very much. It’s so funny to hear different people say what the songs remind them of. It’s really funny, cos some people say, “It sounds like Michael Jackson! It sounds like Fleetwood Mac! It sounds like Madonna!” I’m like, Madonna?! (Read more… )

It’s good to be Alicia Keys. The New York native (perhaps you’ve heard “Empire State of Mind” a few thousand times) is R&B royalty before turning 30. Her latest, The Element of Freedom, hit the top of the U.K. album charts last week—a first for her. When she rings us up, the hip-hop contralto has just jetted back from Rio, where she shot a video with Beyoncé. So, understandably, the 30-million-records-selling stunner is upbeat, giddy even, adorably peppering her responses with ecstatic adjectives like uh-may-zing and bee-yoo-ti-ful. Can you blame her?

So you just got back from Brazil.
Yes, yes, yes. It was amaaazing.

Can’t say I’ve been there.
It was my first time. We were shooting a video for “Put It in a Love Song,” which is an in-cred-i-ble song that we have on our album, produced by Swizz [Beatz]. To end up in Brazil, many months later in this un-be-liev-able visual video, oh my God, it was magnificent. The culture was incredible. The people. They came out to every place we shot. It’s officially Brazil’s song now. (Read more… )