Alicia Keys and then-manager Jeff Robinson, photographed together in the January issue of Ebony magazine in 2004.

As a preteen Alicia trained with vocal coach Conrad Robinson at the Harlem Police Athletic League Community Center, and later enrolled at the prestigious Professional Performing Arts High School. She and three other teens formed a girl group and rehearsed with Coach Robinson, who told his brother, Jeff Robinson, about the talented young girl. Jeff sat in on rehearsals and began to talk to Alicia about her future. Robinson also encouraged Keys to pursue a career as a solo artist.

“My brother has asked me to come by and hear this young girl,” Jeff recalls. “He said she was pretty but very talented. I stopped by the studio one day and heard her sing and play the piano, and I was totally blown away. She’s a very beautiful human being, very inquisitive. She seeks knowledge. Wants to know more, do more and go the next level.”

“Jeff has believed in me from day one,” Alicia says of her manager. “And through every up and down he’s always been there for me, and vice versa… If I had not had his support and the support of people who really loved me, people who didn’t push me into the wrong places, I wonder what I would have been convinced to do, being so young. I’ve always been strong-minded, but I wonder. I’d rather not have anything than be a liar.”