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. (Full Story)

Alicia Keys Fan Club members have the exclusive opportunity to win the Diesel T-Shirt worn by Alicia in the video for “Teenage Love Affair”! If you’d like to enter the contest, and enjoy the benefits that an AKFC membership offers, click here to learn more and join today!

Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight were backstage at the BET Awards were they talked to many of the stars there that night including Alicia. You can watch the Entertainment Tonight video here and the Access Hollywood video here.

Congratulations to Alicia for winning the BET award for Best Female R&B!
Miss Keys performed at the show her latest single “Teenage Love Affair”, she also invited onstage her favourite girl groups SWV, En Vogue and TLC one by one to sing with her a medley of their popular songs (”Weak” , “Hold On”, “Waterfalls”).

“This performance was surreal,” SWV’s Leanne Lyons said backstage. “When we got the call that Alicia Keys was one of our biggest fans and that she wanted one of her favorite groups from the ’90s to perform with her, it humbled us. She shared the stage. She’s not ego tripping.”

Click here to watch the performance.

Tonight were the BET Awards and Alicia had a stellar performance with girl groups from the past: SWV, EnVogue, and TLC. I’ve added tons of pictures of Alicia on the red carpet, performing, accepting her Best R&B Female Award, and backstage in the press room.

Be sure to watch it tonight at BET!

Seated behind her piano on Wednesday night, plucking out the first few chords of “Sure Looks Good to Me,” Alicia Keys finally looked at ease. For about 20 minutes she had breathlessly, and limply, worked the Madison Square Garden stage — forcing sensuality on “You Don’t Know My Name,” getting lost amid her backup singers on “Teenage Love Affair.” But “Sure Looks Good to Me,” one of the best songs on her third and most recent album, last year’s “As I Am” (J Records), began with a welcome desperation. “Life is cheap, bittersweet,” she sang with a clear, melancholy exhale. “But it tastes good to me.”

Unfortunately, though, when Ms. Keys approaches something like a feeling, she pulls up like a runner with a sudden hamstring injury. And so this song, which held so much promise, slowly petered out into emptiness. (Full Story)

I’ve added full set from Giant Magazine photoshoot. She looks fabolous (but even these pictures can’t show how beautiful she’s in person!)

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**. (Full Story)