Music Scene
Catch rising star Alicia Keys in action at World Cafe concert

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer

Alicia Keys Midnight today World Cafe $15 (nearly sold out; World Cafe will have limited tickets at the door) 585-2877 Doors open at 10 p.m. after a concert by folk musician/filmmaker Jack Johnson

The street-smart opener "Girlfriend," for instance, with its "I think I'm jealous of your girlfriend. Although she's just a girl that is your friend" chorus. Or later on the disc, the funky "Rock Wit U," and its innocently flirty come-on, "I wanna rock wit you. No matter what we do. Wit you wit only you."

But then you find yourself grooving to Keys' prodigious piano skills: At once mirroring a conservatory student eager to show off her mastery of the classics, and a jazz and blues fan who spent more than a few small-kid-time Harlem afternoons learning more than just double dutch.

Keys' accomplished production and arrangement skills fall in next. The lyrics for "Rock Wit You" may be teenage homegirl crush, but the track can barely contain some of the most inspired '70s era Philly Soul funk melodies and string arrangements since Barry White's love-daddy heyday.

And that voice, on tracks such as "A Woman's Worth" emoting the kind of "been there, done that" depth and range that divas twice or even three times Keys' age have taken years to master.

Suddenly you understand Keys' dominant position in 2001's year-end music award horse race. She has led nominations for the Billboard Awards, NAACP Image Awards and the American Music Awards, and is a near shoo-in to lead the pack again when Grammy Award nominations are announced in January.

Finally, you press play on "Fallin' ": A piece of gospel and hip-hop piano balladry so ingenious in instrumental composition and vocal execution that it would render everything else on a lesser talent's debut inconsequential. It spent six weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot 100 this fall without a single lamely self-congratulatory war cry about being "bootylicious" or "real."

"Songs In A Minor" has sold 4 million copies so far. "Fallin' " would have been a hit in any year. But in music's very own annus horribilis, when without Keys, J. Lo's musically inert sophomore disc would have likely been deemed 2001's biggest success story, "Fallin' " was an aural godsend. For that alone, Keys deserves any kudos laid before her.

Coming at the current pinnacle of her still-evolving success story, Keys' midnight concert tonight at World Cafe is a coup for the vocalist's Honolulu fans. Keys is in town for a vacation after a whirlwind fall tour. Tonight's hastily scheduled late-night concert — announced so late that it's not even listed on Keys' roster of tour dates — may be your last chance to catch Keys in an intimate venue before her success requires the seating capacity of, say, Blaisdell Arena.

At the behest of her mother — who saw her daughter as a potential prodigy — Alicia Augello Cook was sent off to classical piano lessons at age 5. The lessons had to compete with vocal training when Keys turned choir major at the Performance High School of Manhattan, where she graduated as valedictorian when she was 16.

Turning down a partial Columbia University scholarship for a Columbia Records recording contract, Keys struggled to find her sound amidst a revolving door of high-profile producers assigned to work with her. She eventually decided to try writing and producing on her own, blending her many musical loves — classical, hip-hop, jazz, funky R&B, among them — into compositions that reflected her feelings.

Much of what would eventually end up on "Songs In A Minor" came out of Keys' teenage angst.

" 'Fallin' ' started when I thought it'd be so ill for someone really young to sing a crazy deep song that you'd be like, 'How does that person know what that feels like?' " Keys told Rolling Stone in a November cover story.

"It came from the relationship I was in. The different dynamics we were goin' through at the time, me bein' the independent person that I am and really feelin' somethin' so strong that it made me just sometimes hate him."

After a new Columbia Records regime balked at the less-than-danceable content of a near-completed "Songs In A Minor" master, Keys' contract was eagerly snapped up in 1998 by then-Arista Records head Clive Davis.

A 25-year music industry producer and power broker — noted, among other things, for discovering Bruce Springsteen, molding Whitney Houston's career and making Carlos Santana hip again — Davis was savvy enough to take Keys' still untapped talent to his newly created J Records after leaving Arista in 2000.

Months of Davis' relentless media promotion, private performances for music, television and radio execs, and a spiffy $450,000 video for "Fallin' " rewarded Keys' "Songs In A Minor" with first-week sales of 236,000 and four weeks at the top of the Billboard Top 200 album chart in July and September. Still a top seller, the album was No. 23 last week.

Keys is that kind of accomplished young musical talent with the potential to become a legend on the level of her musical hero, Stevie Wonder. Given what will almost certainly be further growth in Keys' songwriting and composition skills, her next CD could be the stunner that "Songs In A Minor" — although quite an accomplishment — only hints at.