Barely out of her teens, Alicia Keys stormed the pop charts in the early 2000s with a mature mix of soul, jazz and hip-hop. Her debut, Songs in A Minor, produced two Top 10 singles “Fallin'” and “A Woman’s Worth.” Keys took home five Grammys for the album, including Best New Artist, Best R&B Album and Best R&B song. Songs in A Minor went on to sell over 5 million copies. Keys’ 2003 follow-up, The Diary of Alicia Keys, debuted at Number One and produced another batch of hits, including “You Don’t Know My Name,” “If I Ain’t Got You” and “Diary.” The album — and a duet with Usher on “My Boo” — earned her another eight Grammy nominations, four of which she won. Keys came back strong in 2007 with As I Am. Selling 742,000 copies in its first week — the album marked her fourth consecutive Number One debut on the Billboard 200. Keys took home two more Grammys in 2008 for the single “No One.” In October 2009, Keys appeared on Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” a love song to the Big Apple and the wildly successful first single from the rapper’s Blueprint 3 album. Keys and Jay-Z performed the track at MTV Video Music Awards and the American Music Awards, helping to push it to Number One. Keys’ fourth studio album, The Element of Freedom, dropped in December 2009 and sold 417,000 copies in its first week of release, debuting at Number Two. In 2012, Keys released Girl on Fire. She continues to croon across the globe.
