IF you’re looking for a way to sum up Alicia Keys, the title of her latest single, Superwoman, says it all.

At just 27, the softly spoken R&B singer is an undisputed pop megastar who has won nine Grammys and sold more than 20 million albums worldwide.

And she’s just joined the ranks of Shirley Bassey, Nancy Sinatra, Tina Turner and Madonna by recording a James Bond theme song - the latest.

But the girl born Alicia Augello Cook in Harlem, New York, hasn’t always led such a charmed life.
Born to an Irish/Italian mother and Jamaican father (who split early in her childhood), Keys was raised in New York’s notorious Hell’s Kitchen - a cultural melting pot of Irish, Italian and Puerto Rican immigrants in Manhattan’s Midtown district where many known gangsters resided.

“My mother raised me and I saw her struggle and work and I’m not under any illusions _ I know exactly what I could go right back to,” she says down the line from Belgium, where she’s just come off stage after a concert. read more