Alicia: bares her soul; beyond the artist's beautiful exterior lies an amazingly talented and driven young woman who is coming into her own

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WHEN I SAT DOWN one recent Sunday afternoon to talk to musical phenomenon Alicia Keys (I was in New York, she was in London), what I heard was far from what I expected. In her smooth, chocolaty voice, Alicia spoke with an openness few artists would dare in an interview. Indeed, the conversation felt less like an interview than a rare opportunity to be a fly on the wall of Alicia's creativity.

As she prepares to debut her third studio album, smartly titled As I Am, she was gracefully honest, sharing deeply personal stories about who she is and how she got to where she is today. This was not the guarded Alicia so many have come to know over the past six years. This time she let the wall down.

For almost six years, Alicia accepted nearly every offer that came her way--performances, appearances, trips, interviews, meetings, award show, you name it. She showed up, on time, always with a smile on her face. And she delivered her unique brand of entertainment brilliantly, again and again and again.

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"My life got so crazy very quickly," the nine-time Grammy winner acknowledges, "and I didn't know when it was safe for that wall to be down. It became a bit like a mask I was wearing. I took that mask off this year and realized how instrumental that was for me, that I could have balance between it all."

Alicia has made a commitment to herself to strike a balance, one fueled by raw honesty. And her new self-awareness has been liberating, she says.

How this young woman--who has sold some 20 million records, traveled the world many times over and soared to unimaginable success--reached such a space of personal freedom at just 26 years old reflects the content of her album, and the essence of her story. The artist's trajectory has been rapid and record-breaking, but not without tremendous cost to her psyche and her soul.

IN THE BEGINNING

By all accounts, Alicia Keys was a good student, to some a child prodigy. When the native New Yorker was in preschool, her mother, Terria Joseph, recalls, "I went into Alicia's school, and her teacher, who was very much into the arts, had Alicia singing a song from Cats--at barely 4 years old!"

Alicia's toddler class then voted the starlet-to-be to play Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz for the next production. "I guess I got a little inkling there," Joseph says, of her daughter's talent. Joseph, a professional actress, picked up that ball and ran with it. She got her daughter a gig on The Cosby Short, when she was about 4 years old. By age 7, Alicia was seriously studying piano.

Between 7 and 13, Alicia engaged in many pursuits, including ballet at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, gymnastics and piano. Joseph says, "Being a single parent raising her in the city, I tried to give her every opportunity, just so she could find out what her muse was."

Alicia became so deeply involved in extracurricular activities that she experienced her first bout of burnout just as she approached puberty. Before her daughter reached her 13th birthday, Joseph remembers Alicia coming to her in tears saying she had had enough. "She was overwhelmed and begged me not to add anything else to her schedule. She turned around and said, 'Okay, mom, I'm losing my mind now.'"

At that point, Alicia wanted to wash her hands of everything. Just stop!

Instead, Joseph took her daughter on a much-needed vacation, eliminated the other activities and encouraged Alicia to resume piano.

THE PURSUIT OF HER MUSE

Throughout junior high and high school, Alicia sang, wrote and performed. Always the serious student, she moonlighted in girl groups mostly, wherever and whenever she could. At about 14, Alicia was part of a group that was forming in the Bronx when she was first "discovered."

Jeff Robinson remembers. "My brother [Conrad Robinson]--who runs a youth organization, Teens in Motion, in the Bronx--told me about this girl and kept asking me to come see her," he says. "I had heard that story 1,000 times, so I was like 'Whatever.' Anyway, eventually I went up there, and I saw this girl. She was beautiful. Then he had her sing for me. She had a little twang. Then she got on the piano and started playing Beethoven and her own songs." Robinson says he turned to Alicia and said, "Come with me, and we'll make millions together."

Lucky for her, Jeff was in a position to make good on his promise. He had been trained by Andre Harrell at Uptown Records before he moved to Warner Brothers, where he got a production deal and a chance to partner with legendary A&R executive Peter Edge.

When he started to work with Alicia, Robinson was ready and he wanted Alicia to be ready, too. So he decided to teach her everything. "We formed a bond that was not just artist/manager," he says. "We were like family. I took Alicia everywhere with me. All the meetings with lawyers. All the negotiations with different record labels."