Producers: Jermaine Dupri, Brian McKnight, Alicia Keys, Kerry "Krucial" Brothers.

Engineers include: Gerry Brown, Brian Frye, Kerry "Krucial" Brothers.

Alicia Keys won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. SONGS IN A MINOR won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. "Fallin'" won the 2002 Grammy Awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and for Best R&B Song.

Picture Roberta Flack with hip-hop trimmings or D'Angelo coming at the world from a female perspective and you get an idea of the immense talent welling up from musical prodigy Alicia Keys. Blessed with a soulful voice, mature-beyond-her-years songwriting, and a classically trained command of piano, it's no wonder music mogul Clive Davis brought the 20-year old performer over from Arista as one of the flagship artists for his new label J Records. Keys displays impressive range on this primarily self-penned debut that finds her taking part in arranging and/or production on every cut, once again redeeming Davis's instincts.

The very title of The Diary of Alicia Keys at once disarmingly simple and selfimportant suggests that Keys, like Furtado, took her stardom a little too seriously and felt compelled to present her worldview unfiltered, dispensing with artistic ambiguities and leaving each song as a portrait of Alicia Keys, the woman as a young artist. As she somewhat bafflingly says in her liner notes, "these songs are like my daily entrees," which likely means that these were indeed intended to play like unedited entries in a journal, a goal that she's fulfilled quite successfully, even if it does mean that the album often plays as a diary, leaving listeners in the role of observers instead of seeing themselves in the songs. This was a problem on Furtado's nearly simultaneously released Folklore, but Keys trumps her peer in one key way musically, this is a seamless piece of work, a sultry slow groove that emphasizes her breathy, seductive voice and lush soulfulness. Tonally, this is ideal latenight romantic music, even when the tempos are kicked up a notch as on the blaxploitationfueled "Heartburn," yet beneath that sensuous surface there is some crafty, complex musicality, particularly in how Keys blurs lines between classic soul, modern rhythms, jazz, pop melodies, and singer/songwriter sensibility. It's an exceptionally wellconstructed production, and as a sustained piece of sonic craft, it's not just seductive, it's a good testament to Keys' musical strengths (which can even withstand Andre Harris and Vidal Davis' irritating squeaky voice production signature on "So Simple").

What the album lacks are songs as immediate as "Fallin'" or as compelling as "A Woman's Worth," and that, combined with her insular outlook, is where Diary comes up short and reveals that it is indeed merely a second album. Such is the problem of arriving with a debut as fully formed as Songs in A Minor at such a young age listeners tend to expect more from the sequel, forgetting that this an artist still in her formative stages. So, those expecting another album where Keys sounds wise beyond her years will bound to be disappointed by The Diary of Alicia Keys, since her writing reveals her age in a way it never did on the debut. Yet that is a typical problem with sophomore efforts, and while this is a problem, it's one that is outweighed by her continually impressive musical achievements; they're enough to make The Diary worth repeated listens, and they're enough to suggest that Keys will continue to grow on her third album. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Album Credits and Notes:

Producer|String Arrangements, Synthesizer|Piano|Keyboards|
Vocals (Background)|Multi Instruments|Fender Rhodes|
Synthesizer Piano: Alicia Keys
Assistant: Rabeka Tuinei
Vocals (Background): Johnny Legend
Mixing: Patrick Viala
Producer|String Arrangements, Synthesizer|Piano|Keyboards|
Vocals (Background)|Multi Instruments|Fender Rhodes|
Synthesizer Piano: Alicia Keys
Organ: Arcel Vickers
Mastering: Herb Powers
Concert Master, Violin: Sanford Allen
Vocals (Background): Andricka Hall
String Arrangements|String Conductor: Ray Chew
Engineer: Ann Mincieli
Bass: Fred Cash
Violin: Marion Pinheiro
Cello: Eileen Folson
Bass: Artie Reynolds
Organ (Hammond)|Fender Rhodes: Onree Gill
Violin: Dale Stuckenbruck
Viola: Richard Brice
Percussion: Pablo Batista
Assistant: Alan Ford
Cello: Caryl Paisner
Viola: Julien Barber
Violin: Kurt Briggs
Violin: Lori Miller
Guitar: Artie "Blues Boy" White
Violin: Alexander Vselensky
Artwork: Chris LeBeau
Viola: Robert Chausow
Viola: Barry Finclair
Piano: Timothy Christian Riley
Guitar: Ronnie Drayton
Vocals (Background): Cindy Mizelle
Drums: Paul Alexandre John
Engineer|Mixing: Tony Black
Drums: Steven "Steven J." Jordan
Executive Producer: Peter Edge
Vocals (Background): Katreese Barnes
Mixing: Tony Maserati
Horn: Joe Romano
Viola: Peter Vanderwater
Engineer: Walter "Lil Walt" Millsap
Cello: Marisol Espada
Vocals (Background): Harold Lilly
Violin: Avril Brown
Producer|Digital Programming: Easy Mo Bee
Viola: Maxine Roach
Engineer: Vincent Dilorenzo
Producer, Multi Instruments: Vidal Davis
Vocals (Background): L.C. Green
Bass: Elijah Baker
Violin: Xin Zhao
Guitar: John Jubu Smith
Violin: Stanley Hunte
Producer: Timbaland
Producer, Multi Instruments: Rich Harrison
Producer, Multi Instruments: Andre Harris
Bass: Willie Weeks
Mixing: Manny Marroquin
Stylist: Patti Wilson
Mixing: Russell Elevado