Alicia Keys

Tuesday, February 19

A A A Comments By Greg Barr Thursday, Feb 14 2002

Any day now, Alicia Keys will feed the hungry, cure the common cold and win some Grammy Awards. Okay, the first two might be a stretch, but it's a lock that she'll collect more than one trophy on February 27. On the other hand, considering this 21-year-old has been credited with single-handedly stamping out urban music's pervasive sexism merely by releasing the song "A Woman's Worth" on last summer's Songs in A Minor, achieving world peace may not be too far out of reach -- not in the minds of her spinmeisters, anyway.

Alicia sings in many keys on Songs in A Minor.

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Tuesday, February 19; 713-225-8551

Verizon Wireless Theater, 520 Texas Avenue

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With years of classical and jazz piano training under her belt, the ability to write compelling lyrics and a worldly personality for one so young, Keys is indeed far ahead of many of her R&B peers who stress choreography first with songs a mere afterthought. Believe it or not, her music could thrive even if there were no such thing as music videos.

On A Minor, Keys mixes '70s-era soul arrangements (there hasn't been this much wah-wah guitar on a record since the Jackie Brown soundtrack) with sparse, Sade-style musings to create a dreamy, emotional landscape. Yet her vocals have more than just a sense of maturity; they can punch and kick with authority. It's as if she really meant her emotive pleasure-to-pain pleas in "Fallin'." And in "A Woman's Worth," she gives her girlfriends a cri de coeur against chauvinist rappers who have a different ho in every area code.

Back in 1989, a young Swedish-born singer named Neneh Cherry, stepdaughter of jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, made a big splash with her single "Buffalo Stance" and was subsequently hailed as a sensual yet tough woman who could bridge the R&B/hip-hop chasm and be a strong role model. Like Cherry, Keys has the total package: a sense of purpose, sexuality and a strong left hand on the 88s. While Cherry was sidelined by illness and family matters, the future still lies before Keys as ripe and close at hand as a bush full of blackberries.

Backstage at the Grammys, after the awards are handed out, and when Keys gathers with her girlfriends for hugs and air-kisses all around, we can only imagine what'll go through the minds of her competition: "Dang, girl, when I grow up, I'm gonna be like her."

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