Alicia Keys to set Dubai stage on fire

Wednesday, Jun 26, 2013

Look who’s coming to burn it up in the UAE, again. Nine years after she first performed in Dubai, the multiple Grammy Award-winner Alicia Keys is heading back to the Dubai Media City Amphitheatre on November 15.

Keys, who also performed in Abu Dhabi in 2008, began her Set the World on Fire Tour in March to promote her fifth album Girl on Fire, and will perform some of her greatest hits as well as songs from her new album. Girl on Fire went straight to the top of the Billboard albums chart on its debut last year with its first single, also of the same name, a chart success around the world.

“Having worked with Alicia Keys when she first visited the Middle East back in 2004 and after seeing her in concert when she performed in London a few weeks back, I can guarantee her many regional fans they will be in for not only a fantastic show with all her many great hits but in addition, [they] will get to experience one of the absolute most talented stars around,” said Thomas Ovesen, Done Events COO.

Tickets, starting at Dh295, go on sale on Sunday.

The 32-year-old, who made one of the most impressive musical debuts with five Grammy Awards for her 2001 album Songs in A Minor, is today a celebrity powerhouse. She’s also a businesswoman, creative director, best-selling author, HIV/AIDS campaigner, mother and actress.

Before you get to see her live later this year tabloid! brings you the life and times of Alicia Keys:

She landed with a bang

Alicia Keys almost didn’t come to be. Her name, that is. Before the release of her first album, the singer, born Alicia Cook, almost chose the second name Wilde. But her manager had a dream and made her change it to Keys, and every thing sort of fell into place.

Fallin’, Keys’ first single off her debut album, was released in April 2001 and immediately climbed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts. By the time the album, Songs in A Minor, was released in June, it had already whetted the appetite of fans who took it straight to Number 1. A couple of hit singles followed including A Woman’s Worth and How Come You Don’t Call Me.

On music’s biggest night of the year in 2002, Keys walked away with five Grammy Awards including Song of the Year, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Song for Fallin’, making her only the second woman to do that on a single night after Lauryn Hill. She is now a 14-time Grammy Award winner. Bam!

Keys has released four other albums since with the lastest, Girl on Fire, released last year, bringing her back to the UAE for the second time.

She’s one busy businesswoman

Keys’ most high-profile involvement with a brand is her gig as creative director at BlackBerry. Besides being involved with the development of the brand and promoting it, the singer is actively involved with the smartphone maker’s scholarship programme, which gives four-year scholarships to outstanding women entering their first year of undergraduate study at an accredited college or university.

Keys also partnered with sports giant Reebok to design a signature line for the brand’s Classics line, in stores now.

Before her involvement with BlackBerry, Keys helped design an app for iPhones and iPads called The Journals of Mama Mae and LeeLee, a story-telling and learning app for children, for which she exclusively wrote the music. The app is just one of many businesses her production company AK Worldwide is involved in. And she’s the head honcho.

“I am an everyday woman [that’s] just like everyone else out there trying to find their way through this journey, so [in all] the things that I do, I try to reflect that,” she told the Wall Street Journal in an interview.

She’s a sexy mama

In July 2010, Keys and music producer Swizz Beatz (real name: Kasseem Dean) got married on the French Island of Corsica. The two had been working together for many years before rumours began to swirl about their relationship. Beatz finally proposed in 2009. Three months after the wedding, Keys gave birth to their son, Egypt.

“I think we’ve taught each other a lot,” she told Marie Claire UK referring to her husband. “He’s taught me to live more fully, and I think I’ve taught him to live more deeply.”

Keys said she named her son Egypt because the country affected her deeply.

“I took an important trip for myself to Egypt. There were a lot of things that needed to change. I was not as experienced then, so I felt close to a breakdown,” she told Complex magazine. “I went to Egypt, and I went alone. I sailed down the Nile and I saw the temples, the tombs, and the pyramids. It was powerful. It was very Cleopatra. When we found out I was pregnant, my husband said, ‘Egypt was such an important time for you. That really changed your life. Wouldn’t that be amazing as a name?’ Once he said that, I was like, ‘Yes.’ ”

She’s really serious about philanthropy

Keys is one of the few celebrities that really walks the walk. Ever since her breakthrough, she’s always championed women’s empowerment, which has often reflected in her songs. Even her business involvement with BlackBerry involved a scholarship programme for women. But Key’s biggest involvement is in HIV/AIDS campaign. She’s the co-founder of Keep a Child Alive, an organisation that provides care, treatment, support and food for children and families affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India, a project that has taken her all over the developing world. She is also a spokesperson for Frum Tha Ground Up, a charity dedicated to inspiring and motivating American youths to achieve success on all levels.

“It can be tempting to join the “hot’ cause, but those who have been most effective in creating change stay focused,” she told Forbes magazine. “It takes discipline, and sometimes it can feel a bit lonely, but it’s precisely during those times when other issues are getting attention that your voice is most needed.” Word.

She’s really into movies

Besides making an appearance on The Cosby Show at the age of four, Keys has proven she’s not just a pretty face with a powerful voice. She’s been slowly but steadily building her repertoire of films with noteworthy performances in Smokin’ Aces’ (2007), The Nanny Diaries (2007) and The Secret Life of Bees (2008). She made her directorial debut last year in the for-TV Five, which explored the impact of breast cancer on people’s lives and relationships. She’s been rumoured to play the legendary American entertainer Lena Horne in an upcoming biopic.

…and lastly, that Israel controversy.

Keys’ upcoming performance in Tel Aviv on July 4 took an interesting turn early this month when Pink Floyd founding member Roger Walters and The Colour Purple author Alice Walker wrote open letters to her, asking her to call off the concert and join the Academic Cultural Boycott of Israel.

“It would grieve me to know you are putting yourself in danger [soul danger] by performing in an apartheid country that is being boycotted by many global conscious artists,” Walker wrote, while Walters urged her to “join the rising tide of resistance” and refuse “to give legitimacy to the Israeli government policies of illegal, apartheid, occupation of the homelands of the indigenous people of Palestine.”

Keys responded, telling the New York Times that “Music is a universal language that is meant to unify audiences in peace and love, and that is the spirit of our show.”

*Tickets to Alicia Key’s concert go on sale on Sunday, June 30. They will start at Dh295. To register for pre-sale deals, go to doneevents.com.

By David Tusing Deputy tabloid! Editor