Keys has made it her business to defy people's expectations. She was a virtual unknown a little over a year ago. Then, with the release of her self-written Songs in A Minor, she shocked the industry by topping the charts and becoming an overnight success. One might naturally assume that a 21-year-old artist who has sold 8 million albums worldwide and won a wide mantel's worth of awards (five Grammys, two American Music Awards, one MTV Video Music Award, one Billboard, two Soul Train Awards) would avoid the mundane realities of everyday life. Why not ball as hard as possible? Folks her age, regardless of their net worth, tend to party more than they plan their futures. But from day one, the immensely talented Keys has had a different agenda. The more things change around her, the more she's determined to keep her world the same.
That's precisely why you'll often catch Keys traveling dolo throughout New York City, her hometown. Most artists of her caliber are always surrounded by an entourage-bodyguards, assistants, and random friends from their neighborhoods. Not Keys. Nothing, including riding on the subway or reading a book in Central Park, is off-limits. "Alicia's very unwilling to give up her right to go and do what she wants," says Terri Augello, Alicia's mom, who obviously worries about her daughter's solitary travels. "She doesn't like the restrictions." Says Keys, "If you don't act grand and attract attention, people don't really get crazy."
On the street outside the museum, a few black and Latino kids in their early teens spot Keys and run up to get her autograph. One young girl has a pen, but no one has any paper. "C'mon, shorty, you don't have any paper in that book bag?" Keys asks a chubby boy with a 'fro. Obviously thinking in rap terms, he misunderstands and thinks she's looking for money. He keeps repeating that he's broke. Someone finally finds paper, and Keys signs her name. Shorty with the 'fro asks her for a hug. She leans into him and says, "You're never broke. Not in your mind, not in your spirit. You can be rich in those things no matter what. You feel me on that?" He mumbles a few yeahs, and they hug again.
Coming from any other multimillionaire, that might be hard to swallow, but it's easy to believe that Alicia is coming from an honest place. "Money has never been the reason why I feel good or why I feel bad. Even now, I've still got the same dirty-ass, needs-to-be-washed car, but I love driving it," she says of her 2001 Mazda Millennium. "It's cool, not extravagant in any way, and I can go anywhere I want and won't get a second glance. Who the hell wants to be flashy all the time?" Her manager, Jeff Robinson, is constantly telling her to buy something nice for herself. "I'm such a frugal person. I'd much rather invest in my company, new equipment, things that are long-term," says Keys.
Her wise-beyond-her-years thinking can partly be attributed to the influence of her Italian-American mother (Keys's African-American father wasn't around during her childhood). As a struggling actress, Augello is all too familar with the entertainment industry, and she warned her daughter early on of its pitfalls, having no idea Alicia's talent would lead to this level of success. "How can anyone say they always knew?" Augello says. "This is the most fickle of businesses. Fame and fortune and all that junk-I don't even know what that is from day to day. Nobody loves you when you're down and out, so you just have to stay true to yourself."
Keys says the ups and downs of showbiz don't scare her. The sophomore jinx? "I feel like that's a mind game put out there to give people insecurities," she says, now riding in a chauffeured SUV through Central Park on her way to get a bite to eat. She's already at work on a new album, due for a mid-2003 release. There's no denying, however, that it's tough to hold on to creative integrity after enormous success; the pressure to top your last project is constant. "All the things that have happened don't make me look at my artistry in the sense that now it's confined," she says. "I want to stretch my boundaries, try new things, so people can never figure me out. I think that's fun, instead of sinking into this common place that's comfortable. I'm not scared to fail. I want to go out on limbs and fall and rise and take a chance."
Keys came into the game in a way that was true to her spirit. Her 1997 contract with Columbia Records didn't work out because she was dead-set on writing and producing her own material, much to their dismay. Keys found a more encouraging environment at Arista, thanks to Clive Davis. When the label ousted him and he left to form J Records, he brought her with him. "Mr. Davis has always respected my opinion. Even now, it's not like a bullshit thing where he's pacifying me because I sold records," she says.
The public's first taste of Keys came from the 1997 Men in Black soundtrack on a song called "Dah Dee Dah (Sexy Thing)." She cowrote the track with T. Smith and Reese Johnson, who also served as producer. She sings in a higher register than she's known for now, and her voice has more of a generic quality. Although she puts in her hip hop ad-libs, the song doesn't really have that Alicia Keys stamp. "I can really see how I've moved forward," she says. "I listen to the song on Men in Black, and I'm like, Good Lord, ugh! But a lot of people love it."
In 1998, Columbia mailed a CD sampler to industry folks, called Young Soul Power II. It featured Blaque, Jo Jo Robinson, Cassie, and Keys. On "Who's That Girl," Keys sounds a bit more like herself, singing with a deeper, more sultry voice and dropping in more of her signature ad-libs. She produced and wrote the track with her writing partner, Kerry Brothers. Keys wasn't completely happy with the song, though. She felt pressured by her label to be less individualistic and take fewer chances. "Good thing that didn't come out," she says. By the time she did "Rock Wit U" for the Shaft 2 soundtrack in 2000, she had found her groove. The song ended up on her solo debut.
For Keys, musicianship has always been a top priority. Her piano teacher from age 7 to 17, Margaret Pine, remembers that even the smallest recital was an opportunity for the budding star to shine. "Even from a young age, Alicia had great stage presence," Pine says. "For her, it was also an occasion to look good. Some of the other kids would look a little sloppy. She never did. It always meant something to her." At one of her early recitals, she played Chopin's "Raindrop Prelude," and the audience went crazy. "It just gave you goose bumps, gorgeous and spiritual," says Pine. "You felt like she really threw her whole heart into playing it. When people started screaming, she just smiled that big, beatific smile."
From the beginning, Keys let Pine know she was interested in composing. In addition to her weekly private piano lesson, she attended a weekly group class in which she worked on ear training, composition, and theory. Keys was well liked by the other kids, but according to Pine, there were so many talented students in the class that Alicia didn't really stand out. It was her musicality that made an impression, more than how fast she learned a piece or how many songs she memorized. The students would play games on Pine's synthesizer in which each student would lay down a drum track or whatever layer they wanted. "Alicia always pulled it together," Pine says. "Whatever she put down made the whole piece coalesce." As Keys got older, she would guide her studies toward the music she liked best. She chose to learn "Maple Leaf Rag," Scott Joplin's ragtime classic, and eventually included R&B and hip hop in her own compositions.
"She's one of the reasons I know I'm still playing," Keys says of her former teacher. "It was a cool relationship. She was always very open and understanding. If I wanted to play a Biggie song, she'd be like, 'Let's figure out how we can approach that.' She kept my mind open to lots of different worlds."
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