A lot of children are losing their lives to AIDS. It’s amazing what she’s doing with that foundation. I haven’t been following it closely, but I know about it. Have you followed her Keep A Child Alive foundation efforts? I still remember when my good friend told me that she was going to be big when we first saw the Fallin video. I loved her music then and still loving it. That was like a little over ten years ago.
Hahaha right and not a care in the world – just making great music from scratch! I still remember when she was rocking them braids. Tiffy4love said this on Maat 11:18 pm | ReplyĪdam Maikkula said this on Maat 11:23 pm | Reply I was kind of surprised how much she knew about my work.11 Responses to “The Diary of Alicia Keys Album Cover Drawing” I thought she would be on some real soul music vibe, but she loves talking about rap. We exchanged ideas and visions of the song, and what came out of those sessions was very exciting.”Įasy Mo Bee, perhaps one of the most laid-back figures in hip-hop, told me, “We were in the studio for three days, and I was surprised how deeply she was into beats. “From ‘Flavor in Ya Ear’ to ‘Warning,’ he was the beginning of the Bad Boy sound, so collaborating with him was amazing. “I had known and respected Easy Mo Bee since I was young, and felt that the production he did with Craig Mack and Biggie was incredible,” she said. I love how that joint sounds.”Īs a fan of early Bad Boy recordings, Keys hired producer Easy Mo Bee to work on her hot-buttered remake medley “If I Were Your Woman/Walk on By,” a track that also included bass dramatics of Tony! Toni! Toné! member D’wayne Wiggins. State of Mind,’ and on that track Primo sampled Rakim’s voice saying, ‘New York state of mind.’ So the only way I could do it was to get both of them. “That was historic, having both of them in the studio with me,” Keys said.
Reppin’ NYC to the fullest, Keys recorded a track called “Streets of New York,” which featured appearances from Nas and Rakim unfortunately, the track only appeared on British and Japanese editions. She is constantly growing as an artist, and she represents New York very well.” “She’s very confident without being overbearing or cocky. Following the success of her debut album Songs in A Minor, The Diary of Alicia Keys continued her successful run, becoming her second straight album to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 with. “I like the fact that she’s real with her talent,” Mos Def told me the night of Keys’s star-studded album release party. In my car right now, I have about four copies of that CD.”įor Diary, the singer recruited various hip-hop producers, including Easy Mo Bee, who constructed most of Ready to Die Timbaland and Kanye West, who co-wrote/co-produced the lead single, “You Don’t Know My Name.” Already in steady rotation on the radio and music channels, the video clip featured rapper Mos Def playing Keys’s fantasy love interest. I played Ready to Die so much, I popped three different cassette tapes. I was going crazy.”Ĭiting Biggie Smalls’s debut as one of her favorite albums of all time, Alicia said, “Raw hip-hop is my favorite. I remember when I was a teenager I went to Madison Square Garden to see Biggie, Wu-Tang and Redman, and I was so affected by the power of that show. Just like the blues at its essence, rap is about real life, that’s why I’m so attracted to it. So just as much as soul or classical, hip-hop resonates through my music. “I grew up listening to Red Alert and Mister Cee. Songs in A Minor not only kicked off a wave of ambitious new neo-soul songsters, it fit neatly into the movement of ambitious yet classicist new female singer/songwriters that ranged from the worldbeat. “Hip-hop is my life,” Keys told me in 2003. Since Alicia Keys 2001 debut album, Songs in A Minor, was ever so slightly overpraised, expectations for her second album, 2003s The Diary of Alicia Keys, were ever so slightly too high. Indeed, years before marrying producer Swizz Beatz or working with Jay Z, she’d long been getting her hip-hop on. While The Diary of Alicia Keys, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this month, features lush soul songs as well as a few classical pianist parts straight outta the conservatory, Keys was also a hardcore rap fan who came of age during the Bad Boy/Death Row era, and wasn’t afraid to add some of that flavor to her own music. Unafraid of the dreaded “sophomore slump” that’s plagued more than a few artists, the New York-born and raised singer released The Diary of Alicia Keys in December 2003 and, without a doubt, further elevated her status as a major talent.
Although Alicia Keys attained superstar status in 2001 with Songs in A Minor-winning Grammys and adulation from Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones while also selling six million albums-the young singer was determined that her follow-up be just as special.
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