Alicia Keys Songs ~REPACK~

Alicia Augello Cook (born January 25, 1981),[3][4][5][6][7] known professionally as Alicia Keys, is an American singer and songwriter. A classically trained pianist, Keys started composing songs when she was 12 and was signed at 15 years old by Columbia Records. After disputes with the label, she signed with Arista Records and soon released her debut studio album, Songs in A Minor (2001) through J Records. The album became a critical and commercial success, selling over 12 million copies worldwide and receiving five Grammy Awards in 2002. It contained the Billboard Hot 100 number-one single "Fallin'." Her second album, The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003) was met with continued success, selling eight million units worldwide and spawning the singles "You Don't Know My Name," "If I Ain't Got You", and "Diary."[8] The album earned an additional four Grammy Awards.[9]

Classical piano totally helped me to be a better songwriter and a better musician ... I knew the fundamentals of music. And I understood how to put things together and pull it together and change it. The dedication that it took to study classical music is a big reason why I have anything in this life I think. ... [It] was a big influence on me. It opened a lot of doors because it separated me from the rest. [...] And it did help me structure my songs.

Alicia Keys Songs

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Keys enrolled in the Professional Performing Arts School at the age of 12, where she took music, dance, and theater classes and majored in choir.[28] In her preteen years, Keys and her bass-playing friend formed their first group, though neither "knew too much about how pop songs worked".[22][44] Keys would continue singing, writing songs, and performing in musical groups throughout junior high and high school.[24][40][43] She became an accomplished pianist; according to some sources, after her classical-music teacher had nothing left to teach her, she began studying jazz at age 14[46][48] (this claim, however, was challenged by Keys's music teacher herself).[49] Living in the "musical melting pot" city, Keys had already been discovering other genres of music, including soul music, hip hop, R&B, and taken affinity to artists like Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield. Keen on dissecting music, Keys continued developing her songwriting and finding her own 'flow and style" through her exploration of the intricacies in different music.[25][44][50]

In 1994, manager Jeff Robinson met 13-year old Keys, who participated in his brother's youth organization called Teens in Motion.[40][51] Robinson's brother had been giving Keys vocal lessons in Harlem.[41] His brother had talked to him about Keys and advised him to go see her, but Robinson shrugged it off as he had "heard that story 1,000 times". At the time, Keys was part of a three-member band that had formed in the Bronx and was performing in Harlem.[40][48] Robinson eventually agreed to his brother's request, and went to see Keys perform with her group at the Police Athletic League center in Harlem. He was soon taken by Keys, her soulful singing, playing contemporary and classical music and performing her own songs.[40][43] Robinson was excited by audiences' reactions to her. Impressed by her talents, charisma, image, and maturity, Robinson considered her to be the "total package", and took her under his wing.[46][48][51] By this time, Keys had already written two of the songs that she would later include on her debut album, "Butterflyz" and "The Life".[46][48]

Robinson and Edge helped Keys assemble some demos of songs she had written and set up a showcases for label executives.[24][40][43] Keys performed on the piano for executives of various labels, and a bidding war ensued.[22][43] Edge was keen to sign Keys himself but was unable to do so at that time due to being on the verge of leaving his present record company, Warner Bros. Records, to work at Clive Davis' Arista Records.[22][40][52] During this period, Columbia Records had approached Keys for a record deal, offering her a $26,000 white baby grand piano; after negotiations with her and her manager, she signed to the label, at age 15. Keys was also finishing high school, and her academic success had provided her opportunity for scholarship and early admission to university.[22][40][52] That year, Keys accepted a scholarship to study at Columbia University in Manhattan.[24] She graduated from high school early as valedictorian, at the age of 16, and began attending Columbia University at that age while working on her music.[22][46] Keys attempted to manage a difficult schedule between university and working in the studio into the morning, compounding stress and a distant relationship with her mother. She often stayed away from home, and wrote some of the most "depressing" poems of her life during this period. Keys decided to drop out of college after a month to pursue music full-time.[24][37][46]

Her partner Kerry "Krucial" Brothers suggested to Keys she buy her own equipment and record on her own.[46] Keys began working separately from the label, exploring more production and engineering on her own with her own equipment.[43] She had moved out of her mother's apartment and into a sixth-floor walk-up apartment in Harlem with Brothers, where she fit a recording studio into their bedroom and worked on her music.[46] Keys felt being on her own was "necessary" for her sanity. She was "going through a lot" with herself and with her mother, and she "needed the space"; "I needed to have my own thoughts, to do my own thing."[43] Keys and Brothers later moved to Queens and together they turned the basement into KrucialKeys Studios.[46] Keys would return to her mother's house periodically, particularly when she felt "lost or unbalanced or alone". "She would probably be working and I would sit at the piano", she reminisced.[46] During this time, she composed the song "Troubles", which started as "a conversation with God", working on it further in Harlem. Around this time the album "started coming together", and she composed and recorded most of the songs that would appear on her album.[35][43][46] "Finally, I knew how to structure my feelings into something that made sense, something that can translate to people", Keys recalled. "That was a changing point. My confidence was up, way up."[43] The different experience reinvigorated Keys and her music.[46] While the album was nearly completed, Columbia's management changed and more creative differences emerged with the new executives. Keys brought her songs to the executives, who rejected her work, saying it "sounded like one long demo". They wanted Keys to sing over loops,[43] and told Keys they will bring in a "top" team and get her "a more radio-friendly sound". Keys would not allow it; "they already had set the monster loose", she recalled. "Once I started producing my own stuff there wasn't any going back."[46] Keys stated that Columbia had the "wrong vision" for her. "They didn't want me to be an individual, didn't really care", Keys concluded. "They just wanted to put me in a box."[11] Control over her creative process was "everything" to Keys.[47]

Robinson and Keys, with Davis's help, were able to negotiate out of the Columbia contract and she signed to Arista Records in late 1998.[41][46][52] Keys was also able to leave with the music she had created.[22] Davis gave Keys the creative freedom and control she wanted, and encouraged her to be herself.[11][54] Keys said of Davis's instinct: "he knows which artists are the ones that maybe are needing to craft their own sound and style and songs, and you just have to let an artist go and find that space. And I think he somehow knew that and saw that in me and really just let me find that."[48] After signing with Davis, Keys continued honing her songs.[11] Keys almost chose Wilde as her stage name at the age of 16 until her manager suggested the name Keys after a dream he had. She felt that name embodied her both as a performer and person.[55] Keys contributed her songs "Rock wit U" and "Rear View Mirror" to the soundtracks of the films Shaft (2000) and Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), respectively.[56][57]

The album's second single, "A Woman's Worth", was released in February 2002 and peaked at seven on the Hot 100 and number three on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs; becoming her second top ten single on both charts.[72] Released in June, "How Come You Don't Call Me", Keys's cover of Prince's song, served as the album's third single, peaking at 59 on the Hot 100. The album's fourth single "Girlfriend" was released in the United Kingdom where it peaked at 82. The following year, the album was reissued as Remixed & Unplugged in A Minor, which included eight remixes and seven unplugged versions of the songs from the original.[citation needed]

Keys performed and taped her installment of the MTV Unplugged series in July 2005 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.[98] During this session, Keys added new arrangements to her original songs and performed a few choice covers.[99] The session was released on CD and DVD in October 2005. Simply titled Unplugged, the album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart with 196,000 units sold in its first week of release.[100] The album sold one million copies in the United States, where it was certified Platinum by the RIAA, and two million copies worldwide.[69][7][101] The debut of Keys's Unplugged was the highest for an MTV Unplugged album since Nirvana's 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York and the first Unplugged by a female artist to debut at number one.[71] The album's first single, "Unbreakable", peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number four on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.[102] It remained at number one on the Billboard Hot Adult R&B Airplay for 11 weeks.[103] The album's second and final single, "Every Little Bit Hurts", was released in January 2006, it failed to enter the U.S. charts. 006ab0faaa