Alicia Keys Picture Gallery

Alicia Keys was born January 25, 1980, in New York City, New York. The only child of an Irish-Italian mother and an African father, Alicia got her start in showbiz at the tender age of 5 when she guest-starred in an episode of The Cosby Show. That brief experience increased her desire to become a professional performer, and she began taking piano lessons two years later. “I fell in love with the piano,” Alicia Keys recalls fondly. “I knew it was me. I was dying to play.”