Alicia Keys is the daughter and only child of Irish-Italian mother Teresa Augello, a paralegal and part-time actress, and Jamaican father Craig Cook, a flight attendant.
Alicia Keys felt comfortable with her biracial heritage because she felt she was able to "relate to different cultures".
Alicia Keys parents separated when she was two and she was subsequently raised by her mother during her formative years in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan.
"No One" earned Alicia Keys the awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song at the 2008 Grammy Awards.
Alicia Keys opened the ceremony singing Frank Sinatra's 1950s song "Learnin' the Blues" as a "duet" with archival footage of Sinatra in video and "No One" with John Mayer later in the show.
Alicia Keys performed "Teenage Love Affair" at the BET Awards '08 on June 24, where she also performed 1990s female R&B hits with their original performers: "Weak" with SWV, "Hold On" with En Vogue, and "Waterfalls" with TLC, SWV, and En Vogue. Keys also won Best Female R&B Artist during the show.
Alicia Keys starred in "Fresh Takes", a commercial micro-series created by Dove Go Fresh, which premiered during The Hills on MTV from March to April 2008. The premiere celebrated the launch of new Dove Go Fresh.
Alicia Keys also signed a deal as spokesperson with Glacéau's VitaminWater to endorse the product, and was in an American Express commercial for the "Are you a Cardmember?" campaign.
Alicia Keys, along with The White Stripes' guitarist and lead vocalist Jack White, recorded a theme song to Quantum of Solace, the first duet in Bond soundtrack history.
In 2008, Keys was ranked in at number 80 the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists. Alicia Keys also starred in The Secret Life of Bees, a film adaptation of Sue Monk Kidd's acclaimed 2003 bestseller novel of the same name alongside Jennifer Hudson and Queen Latifah, released in October 2008 via Fox Searchlight.
Her role earned her a nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture at the NAACP Image Awards.
She also received three nominations at the 2009 Grammy Awards and won Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for "Superwoman".
In a 2008 interview with Blender magazine, Alicia Keys allegedly said "'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other, 'gangsta rap' didn't exist" and went on to say that it was created by "the government."
The magazine also claimed she said that Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. were "essentially assassinated, their beefs stoked by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing."
Alicia Keys later wrote a statement clarifying the issues and saying her words were misinterpreted. Later that year, Alicia Keys was criticized by anti-smoking campaigners after billboard posters for her forthcoming concerts in Indonesia featured a logo for the A Mild cigarette brand sponsored by tobacco firm Philip Morris.
She apologized after discovering that the concert was sponsored by the firm and asked for "corrective actions." In response, the company withdrew its sponsorship.
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