Posted by Katie on January 25, 2010 in 
Talented songstress, Alicia Keys, is celebrating her 29th birthday today! Alicia is known around the world for her powerful voice and soulful lyrics!
She hit it big in 2001 with the release of her debut alum, Songs in A Minor, which went on to sell over 10 million copies! Not bad for your first record 
Unlike many popular female vocalists, Alicia has distinguished herself by playing a variety of instruments and penning the majority of her songs.
To learn more about this star talent, check out starpulse.com.
Alicia Augello Cook was born in Harlem in early 1981. Raised by her Italian-American mother, she enrolled in classical piano lessons at the age of seven and began writing songs four years later. An education at the Professional Performance Arts School helped hone her vocal skills, and Alicia graduated at the age of 16 as the class valedictorian. Two Columbias loomed on the immediate horizon: Columbia University and Columbia Records, both of whom had extended offers to the talented student/musician. Although she attempted to make both options work, Alicia found it difficult to juggle the two commitments and chose to focus exclusively on her music career. Assuming the stage name of Alicia Keys, she began to work with Columbia and contributed a song to the Men in Black soundtrack, but disputes with the label resulted in her contract’s termination. Keys bounced back by aligning herself with Clive Davis, the president of Arista Records, but work on her debut album stalled when Davis was ousted from the company in 2000. Davis soon formed his own label, J Records, and welcomed Keys back into the fold with an aggressive publicity campaign (including an influential appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show). Songs in A Minor was then released in June 2001 and debuted at the top of the charts, eventually netting five Grammys and rising to platinum status in ten different countries. Released in 2003, The Diary of Alicia Keys enjoyed similar Grammy-certified success, and Keys released a book of poetry the following year. A live CD/DVD package, Unplugged, arrived in 2005 and followed Keys’ two previous releases to the top of the charts, even if it failed to win any of the four Grammys for which it was nominated. Alicia Keys then entered the acting world, starring in both Smokin’ Aces and The Nanny Diaries in 2007, before issuing the pop-influenced As I Am later that year. It became her fourth consecutive number one album, and she was nominated for another handful of Grammys as a result (“Superwoman” won the award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance in early 2009). As 2009 drew to a close, Keys returned to the top of the Billboard charts with “Empire State of Mind,” a Jay-Z single that featured her vocals, and released her fourth studio album with The Element of Freedom.
BET, or Black Entertainment Television, is celebrating its 30th birthday today!
This January marks the 54th birthday of Bon Appétit! I’m a big fan of the magazine (even if I do struggle in the kitchen).
For all my fashionistas out there, today is Christian Dior’s birthday!
