Alicia Keys (b. 1981)
Filed under the name Alicia · May 22, 2026
Alicia Keys can flat play a piano and sing besides, and songs like "Fallin'" and "Empire State of Mind" have made her one of the most honored artists of her time. I'll confess most modern music doesn't have a tune you can hum the way Patsy Cline did, but even I have to admit Keys has real musicianship under all that production — you can hear the training in it, not just the noise. I used to have a student who'd bang out hymns on our old classroom piano with more feeling than skill, and I always told her the feeling mattered more than folks gave it credit for. Keys seems to have both feeling and skill in good measure, which is a rarer combination than people realize. My late husband Rusty used to say talent without discipline is just noise waiting to happen, and I think Keys is proof of what happens when a person has both. Some gifts are worth the fuss made over them.