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Following Her Dream
High outside the penthouse of a New York City recording studio, R&B and pop music star Alicia Keys is having fun during a photo shoot. The photographer is trying to coax her into leaning over a balcony railing to get a shot against the eye-popping lights of Times Square. "I'll stand on top of the balcony if you want," Keys tells him. And why not? Keys, who's won nine Grammys for her first two albums, grew up a literal stone's throw from here, in the tough, storied Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. But she owns the town now.Born Alicia Augello Cook to an Italian American mother (a paralegal and part-time actress), and an African American father (a flight attendant), Keys, 24, changed her name to reflect her passion for piano, which she began playing at age seven. At 12, she entered Manhattan's Professional Performing Arts School, where she got her classical grounding and learned to compose music. By 16, she had finished high school, been accepted to Columbia University (later deciding to postpone college), and landed her first recording contract. Her debut album, Songs in A Minor, which yielded her first five Grammys, came out in 2001. She was 20.
Shortly before the release of Alicia Keys Unplugged and just days after she performed in a Hurricane Katrina relief fund-raiser, Keys sat down with Reader's Digest to talk about respect, raw emotion, and reaching people through her music.
RD: Tell us about your first piano.
Keys: It was a player piano from the '20s. A friend of my mother's was moving and said if you can move it, you can have it. That was an incredible opportunity for us. We moved the piano with just a dolly -- totally unprofessionally. I was ecstatic. The piano became the divider for my bedroom, which was just the farthest part of the living room.
RD: What was it like growing up in Hell's Kitchen?
Keys: It was like a big world of everything. I grew up around prostitutes, drug dealers, pimps, strippers, needles on the ground. Yet right there was Broadway, with the big lights and Theatre Row. I grew up with dreams, in a place that from the beginning told me you can go this way -- or you can go that way.
RD: What was your mother like?
Keys: She raised me single-handedly. It was very hard for her, because she had to be superwoman. She had to work the job and support the daughter and also try to pursue her dreams. She's my rock. I know she will be there no matter what.
RD: What's the biggest lesson you learned from her?
Keys: To honor myself, because no one will honor or respect me if I don't respect myself. And she always challenged me to explain what I meant, what my purpose was when I did certain things. And to not be a quitter.
RD: Was it your idea to take piano lessons, or something she suggested?
Keys: It was all my idea. I loved the way that the piano felt, the way it sounded. I always was drawn to it. There was a time, though, when I wanted to stop, because I was more concerned with doing average 11- and 12-year-old things. She said, You can take a break, because I know you might feel a little overwhelmed, but you need to keep playing. Now, I wonder: If she hadn't told me that, who would I be?
RD: Was your father around?
Keys: My parents weren't married. It wasn't like my dad up and left. I maintained a steady relationship with my grandparents. My dad's mother is my Nana, and I'm closer to her than almost anybody in this world.
RD: Like the keys on a piano, your mother is white and your father is black. Was it hard for you to figure out where you fit in?
Keys: No. I am able to hang with the hardest, the baddest, the worst, and I'm able to hang with the most proper, and be at ease. I'm able to hang with any skin color, any belief. I just fit in everywhere.
RD: How did you learn to write songs?
Keys: When I was younger my mother and I, we'd have these crazy, crazy fights. Everyone would storm out mad, and the only way that I'd be able to express myself was to write her. We would write letters back and forth for days. When I'm writing, I feel uninterrupted. I write what I'm going through and how I see it. And I feel like people can really understand.
RD: What was the first song you ever wrote?
Keys: I was 14 and had just seen the movie Philadelphia. It was such a sad movie, and it was about a year after my grandfather passed and I wasn't really able to grieve. So I saw that movie, came home to my little player piano, sat down and took that whole night writing. The song was called "I'm All Alone." Through it, I was able to finally grieve for my grandfather.
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