Like Schuyler, Keys' mother is white and her father is black, and she is a classically trained pianist. The rights to the film are owned by Berry, and the Academy Award-winning actress will produce the film along with Marc Platt, who produced the Broadway show, "Wicked" and the Reese Witherspoon "Legally Blonde" movies, according to Keys' publicist Samantha Tillman. She later became a journalist and was killed in 1967 in a plane crash in Vietnam. But she encountered racism as she grew older, and had trouble finding acceptance. The yet untitled film details the life of Schuyler, the only child of George Schuyler, a renowned black journalist and author and Josephine Cogdell, a white artist and writer.īorn in 1939, Schuyler was a child prodigy who played at Carnegie Hall and around the world. I really felt the energy of the songs and hearing them as one piece of work, I was able to say 'Yes, this is who I am right now.' I'm very proud, very happy and so excited about offering the album to the world."Īside from her music, Keys is said to be making her film debut in a Halle Berry-produced biopic about piano prodigy Philippa Schuyler. Now, with "The Diary of Alicia Keys" complete, Keys says, "When the final album was done, I was ecstatic. We had a ball and once we put the song aside, we jammed for six hours straight," she says. It is not just a matter of commercial success, although her 2001 debut album, Songs in A Minor, sold 10m copies. the follow-up The Diary of Alicia Keys remains in the Top Twenty on the pop charts and has sold more than 2 million copies.
I already had a pretty cool relationship with Dwayne Higgins and we got some of the original guys in the studio, Dwayne, Jubu Smith, Elijah Baker, Carl Wheeler, Tim Christian and we had it done in two hours. I f pop stars had approval ratings, Alicia Keyss score would go off the chart. Music, Film, TV and Political News Coverage. Then I thought how much I would love the guys from Tony! Toni! Tone! to play on the track. I wrote the basis for the song in about 10 minutes. It was like he was my diary and I was his for that moment. That's the most important thing."Īnother standout on her latest album is the track "Diary," which features '80s hit makers, Tony! Toni! Tone! Inspired by "a very deep private conversation I had with someone on the road where we were talking about things you just never discuss with anyone. She says on The Early Show, "With everything going on in the world and me personally in my life, I feel like there's nothing more pertinent or important than having love in your life and having someone you can love and people that love you back. 11, the passing of Aliyah, different events in the world and in my life, the song took on a new meaning," Keys notes. The song was sitting there for a while and then with Sept. The soulful "If I Ain't Got You," which features acclaimed musicians Hugh McCracken on guitar and Steve Jordan on drums, is all about "how material things don't feed the soul.
In fact, I just discovered better how to express myself and how to tell what I really feel. That's the way I write from my experience and things that I feel. She tells co-anchor Julie Chen, "Every song, I'm telling on myself completely.