Entertainment

Alicia Keys has parlayed her fame – selling 20 million albums worldwide since 2001's Songs in A Minor, a perennial on the People most beautiful list – into philanthropic work in Africa. Here's some more about her.

EVAN AGOSTINI/The Associated Press

1 She adopted her signature braids at 13, when she discovered that it got her through humid New York City summers.

2 She features rappers as her love interests in her music videos: Common ("Like You'll Never See Me Again"), Method Man ("If I Ain't Got You") and Mos Def ("You Don't Know My Name").

3 "I'm happy that I'm not super skinny," Ms. Keys told Ebony in 2004. "Sometimes I've gotten photographs back, and people have literally shaven off pieces of me, and I tell them to put it back."

4 While on the road, she carries "a cute pink bunny. It reminds me that not everything is so serious," she told InStyle.

5 Bob Dylan mentions Ms. Keys in his song "Thunder on the Mountain": "I was thinking about Alicia Keys/Couldn't keep from crying/When she was born in Hell's Kitchen, I was living down the line/I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be?"

People.com

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