Alicia Keys was born in 1981 and grew up in New York. She had music and dance classes when she was a child and she first appeared on TV in the Cosby Show at the age of four. She started piano lessons when she was seven and learned classical music before she began to write her own songs at the age of 14. Alicia signed a contract with J Records in 1999. She recorded several songs for films before her first album, Songs in Minor, came out in 2001. This was a fantastic success. It entered the charts at number one, sold 236,000 copies in its first week, and went on to sell over 12 million copies worldwide. Alicia won five big awards, including  _ ', the album's top single, which was a number one hit for six weeks. Since then, Alicia has sold over 30 million albums. She has also become an actress and a record producer with her own studio. She plays the piano as well as singing on all her albums and she has written some great songs for other artists. She has performed in TV programmes and she made her first film, Smokin' Aces, in 2007. Her other films include The Nanny Diaries (2007) and The Secret Life of Bees (2008),' What has Alicia done since 2001?
She has opened her own studio. She has started playing the piano. She has recorded all her songs herself. She made her first film The Nanny Diaries.