Alicia Keys, whose real name is Alicia Augello Cook, started playing the piano at the age of 7. Her mother, though not well off - she raised her daughter alone in New York while working part-time as an actress and paralegal - made sure that she kept playing and continued to pay for her classical piano lessons. In fact, Alicia had already shown musical talent earlier, as she started singing at the age of 4.

Due to her exceptional piano playing, Alicia managed to get a place at the Professional Performance Arts School in Manhattan. There she did so well - in all subjects, not just music - that she graduated early, at 16. She was already becoming known to record companies who had noticed her school performances, and the year after leaving school (1998) at the age of 17, she started work with Arista Records. Apart from a very brief spell at university, she has been in the music business ever since.