Issue Date: October 14, 2001

The Keys to superstardom

How Alicia Keys upstaged the reigning pop queens

by Lola Ogunnaike

MTV's Best New Artist is taking her "Songs in A Minor" on the road. And Clive Davis calls his new protégé "the most exciting thing I've seen in a long time."

"This is banging," Alicia Keys declares, eyeing herself in a floor-length Roberto Cavalli denim coat. It's 1 a.m., the night before her first tour kicks off in New York, and Keys, the opening act for Maxwell, neo-soul's crown prince, is deciding what to wear onstage. A stylist and her minions scamper around the spacious Tribeca loft, offering a dizzying array of designer getups. But through all the nipping and tucking, safety pinning and changing, Keys remains cool. "I'm ready to get out there like a fighter and knock somebody out. And," she promises, "I'm gonna give Maxwell a run for his money."

Bold words for a gal with just one hit under her rhinestone-studded belt, but Keys, 20, has reason to be confident. Her debut album, "Songs in A Minor", opened at No. 1, and sales were at 2 million at press time. Last month, she landed the coveted musical spot on the season opener of "Saturday Night Live". This month: "Late Show With David Letterman" and the VH-1/ Vogue Fashion Awards.

Keys, recently named MTV's Best New Artist, admits her meteoric rise caught her off guard. "I knew people were gonna love the album, but I thought it was gonna be a slow burn, an album people came around to after word of mouth." Her music -- a mixed salad of R&B and jazz, sprinkled with a hip-hop vinaigrette -- has caught on faster than a California brush fire. TRL staples Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani all were on hand at Keys' recent sold-out House of Blues show (possibly to check out the competition).

"She's going to be a star," says veteran balladeer Luther Vandross, Keys' J Records label mate. "And performing on Jay Leno and Oprah didn't hurt her career either." Nor has aligning herself with Clive Davis, a man responsible for the careers of Whitney Houston, Carlos Santana and Janis Joplin. The J Records head has invested millions in promoting his young protégé. "Alicia has it," Davis gushes. "She's the most exciting thing I've seen in a long, long time."

Although some may argue Keys is an overrated product of Davis' full-throttle publicity machine -- and the fact that so much has been made of her ability to tickle the ivories speaks more to modern music's dour state than to her actual musical prowess -- there's no denying she's a force to be reckoned with. Her runway face, J.Lo curves, killer pipes and trademark beaded cornrows all combine to make Keys an artist who lives up to the hype. And quite unlike most of her midriff-baring colleagues, she actually has depth. Take, for instance, the semi-autobiographical video for "Fallin'", her haunting, gospel-tinged hit single about a painfully stormy relationship. In it, Keys takes a bus trip to visit her incarcerated boyfriend, something she recalls doing in high school. "I made the trek, got searched, had two minutes with him and had to turn around and leave," she says.

That's love?

"It's something," she chuckles, ruefully. "Stupidity maybe. You never know what caring about somebody will make you do."

Music has always been her first love. Keys (born Alicia Arguello Cook) began practicing scales at age 7 after her mom, a paralegal, scored a baby grand piano from a friend. She likens Hell's Kitchen, the Manhattan neighborhood in which she grew up, to "the brink between heaven and hell." It was nothing like today's tourist-ridden ode to Disney. She regularly passed "pimps, whores, drug dealers, crack heads" on the street. After graduating from the prestigious Professional Performance Arts School, Keys, at 16, enrolled at Columbia University and signed with Columbia Records. Juggling studies and studio time proved too difficult; after four weeks, Keys dropped out of the Ivy League school. A year later, she parted with Columbia Records. "They wanted me to change my songs and work with new people, and I was like, 'No, man! Take me as I am or don't take me at all.' "

Davis took her and promised Keys, who wrote and produced nearly all of her album, complete creative control. "That's the only way it could work for me," the singer says, diligently changing into yet another concert-worthy outfit. With her album holding steady on the charts, Keys is eager to take her show on the road. "Waking up in a different town every night is going to be so much fun!" she squeals. With visions of tour-bus life dancing through her head, Keys takes one last look at her latest incarnation and tilts her fedora to the side. "I can't wait," she says, pumping her small fist in the air. "I was born for this."

Lola Ogunnaike, a New York Daily News entertainment reporter, is mad that she never took piano lessons.