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Former good articleAlicia Keys was one of the Music good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 13, 2009Peer reviewReviewed
February 4, 2009Good article nomineeListed
July 1, 2012Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article

Basic biographical info

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Someone should add a source for her date of birth, since the linked sources do not. I have seen her DOB as 25 Jan 1980, rather than 1981, in a public record and her YOB as 1980 in "Who's Who among African Americans." 25th edition. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2012.

Also, her great-grandfather was not in fact from Sciacca but rather from Sambiase, a part of the city of Lamezia Terme in Calabria. Unfortunately the only sources I have for this are primary ones (i.e., actual civil records) so I will not be editing this page yet, but I note that the 2 linked Italian articles contradict one another - one says that her mother's grandparents (plural) were from Sciacca while other says that one of her mother's grandparents was from Calabria (and even correctly identifies the 2 towns that this great-grandmother's parents were from in Calabria) and one was from Sicily (without specifying where). You can't just pick and choose which parts of 2 conflicting sources you want to use! If these are your only sources you should acknowledge the uncertainty. Gmalcolms2 (talk) 06:19, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Black American Music 209

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 23 October 2022 and 15 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Wesph148 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Wesph148 (talk) 17:49, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 27 July 2023

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She was born in 1981 not 1980 87.75.168.118 (talk) 08:42, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Paper9oll (🔔📝) 09:53, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

She says or implies 1981 in her memoir More Myself a few times:

  • "on a spring evening in 1980, I was conceived." - (P1, Ch 2 Beginnings)
  • "TERRI AUGELLO, ALICIA’S MOM - When I got pregnant with Alicia, I was almost thirty and thinking about moving from New York to LA to see what acting opportunities I could get out there. It was 1980. I’d never had a pregnancy, and I called my mother." - (P1, Ch 2 Beginnings)
  • "My father wasn’t there when I was born. On that January evening in 1981, as the city’s temperatures flirted with the freezing mark, Mommy arrived at the hospital already in labor." - (P1, Ch 2 Beginnings)
  • "I am nineteen. In a few months, my first album will drop and my life will suddenly be divided into two distinct halves ... As 2000 draws to a close..." - (First Word)

But, that doesn't necessarily mean it's true. Nancy Reagan used a fake date in her memoir. AP and People both interestingly give her YOB as 1980. --Shivertimbers433 (talk) 00:32, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alicia Keys antisemitism

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Is wikipedia going to include Alicia Keys's antisemitic social media post about hang gliding after the terrorist Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023? Boing55 (talk) 01:04, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are absolutely right. Added a reliable source that covered it. Let's see how long it lasts here. 2601:19E:427E:5BB0:8349:6307:2D41:BDA4 (talk) 12:21, 2 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not neutral POV / Fictitious references

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I would like to call your attention to this part, specifically:

"From a young age, Keys struggled with self-esteem issues, hiding little by little when her differences made her vulnerable to judgment, and later uninvited sexual attention. Living in the rough neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, she was, from an early age, regularly exposed to street violence, drugs, prostitution, and subjected to sexual propositions in the sex trade- and crime-riddled area. "I saw a variety of people growing up, and lifestyles, lows and highs. I think it makes you realize right away what you want and what you don't want," Keys said. Keys recalled feeling fearful early on of the "animal instinct" she witnessed, and eventually feeling "high" due to recurrent harassment."

  1. I want to first state that this is not my subject area and I just stumbled upon this page and these issues at random. First, I was taken aback by the latent misandry present in the description of Keys' childhood neighborhood. I visited the cited sources and noted that the summaries in the article overstate the "harassment" that she endured as a teenager (she never actually used that word). Looking specifically at reference 27, Keys never mentions any specific or tangible action taken by anyone toward her and instead cites feelings that she had and assumptions that she made about men that caused her to "hide herself". That is a major point of what that blog post she made is trying to convey. Near the end where she has her awakening and realizes that she no longer needs to hide, why is that? The men didn't change. Therefore, they could not have been the problem in the first place! She changed. That's the point. Her problems as a teen weren't the fault of random men hitting on her due to the unwelcome intrusion of puberty, they were caused by not growing up with a father figure to socialize her to being around a mature male presence, so it scared her. As she matured and had more experience with men, she realized that her teen self had over-reacted. The article should be changed to reflect this perspective. But I'm not volunteering because, as I said, this ain't my area.
  2. To further prove the case about misandry, I would like to call your attention to the last underlined sentence in the quote above. This statement is a jumble of multple statements made at different times about different things. The "animal insinct" part is in reference to how she felt about guys leering at her on the streets. That then implies that 'guys on the streets' is the subject of the sentence which goes on to talk about "feeling high due to recurrent harassment". The only source that quotes Keys as saying anything about feeling high is the short movie The Gospel at 14:56 - 15:10 which is given as reference 33. The exact quote is: "I grew up around a lot of pimps and prostitutes. They solicited[sic] me all the time and it made me, um, it made me high. Like it made me not want to be a woman." So it wasn't men doing what men do and her having a coming of age crisis as the article seems to be implying. Instead, she's having a very specific - and quite alien to most readers - experience of being recruited (not solicited) into sex work. To me, this is no minor issue. The article reads like its skewing her words to support an anti-male agenda. But this is just a talk page and I've said my piece.

Note: I apologize in advance that I likely didn't fully support an accusation of fictitious references. I just don't know what else to call what's going on here. Adam Takvam (talk) 14:21, 4 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]