Alicia Keys on Soul Music

It’s so easy to hate Alicia Keys. Besides being fine as crystal, the sister knows how to construct soulful pop songs with the flair of Stevie Wonder and the pop sensibility of Burt Bacharach. Yet, even with three best-selling albums, a truck full of awards (five Grammys in 2002 alone) and songcraft for days. Even if you give her a pass for those frequent Prince swipes (click these links to weigh the evidence and draw your own conclusions), there are still folks who believe Alicia Keys is an R&B poser.

In 2007, when Keys’ last joint All I Am dropped, my spiritual godfather Greg Tate wrote an inspired review called “Extensions of a Woman,” wherein he praised her for being damn-near a genius. Some of the villagers got a little rowdy, and like a scene out of Frankenstein complete with pitchforks and torches, one angry voice berated the singer/songwriter/producer by calling her “dumbed-down, mainstream, and utterly irrelevant as they come.”

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