Robinson (a legend in the making) is back on board for the sweet video for “You Don’t Know My Name” which features Mos Def (who consistently makes self-deprecation and detachment acts of genius in his acting and interviews) and was shot in the Peter Pan dinner in Harlem (the corner of 135th and Lennox to be exact - across from the Schomberg Center). Choosing the song as the lead single is both a testament to J’s faith in Keys as a pop artist and an admission that “You Don’t Know My Name” is as good as pop-soul gets.Īs much of any contemporary pop artist, Keys’s real artistry has been enhanced by the use of smart, thoughtful videos - clearly the case with Chris Robinson’s work on “A Woman’s Worth” and “Fallen”. Logging in at just over six minutes, the song is the anti-pop single, as both radio stations and video outlets have been hard-pressed to let the song play through until the show-stopping mack-diva breakdown, that could make Issac Hayes, Teddy Pendergrass, David Porter and the late Barry White all blush praise. Featuring a sample from The Main Ingredient’s (the purveyors of classic East Coast neo-doo wop) “Let Me Prove My Love to You”, the song is yet another example of the real-deal hype surrounding Chi-town producer Kanye West (Jay-Z: “you a genius, nigga!”). But Keys surprised everybody with the lead single “You Don’t Know My Name”, a slick, breath taking tribute to 1970s soul. Given the significant drop off of quality songs after the first two singles (in defense many were written while she was still a teen), the obvious fear is that The Diary of Alicia Keys would be little more than Songs in A Minor 2 - the record industry is run by people with less ambitions. Both “Fallen” and “A Woman’s Worth” were indicative of Keys’s significant, though often mechanical vocal talents. Songs in A Minor featured several finely crafted, if derivative, pop confections that are a testament to Keys’s talents. Keys has to live up to all the things, she never may have been. Two years later, the unrequited hype is now expectation, and with her follow-up The Diary of Alicia Keys, Ms. No doubt this was one of the factors Davis considered, when Keys joined him at J Records. Fact is, the camera loved her - and her post-mulatta looks - and in the video-age that is half the sell. When Keys became a ubiquitous pop force throughout 2001 and into 2002, it was easy to suggest that somehow there was a gap between the hype and the talent - singer-songwriters don’t sell 10 million records.
If India.Arie could be accused of using her guitar as little more than a prop, on some level, the Baby Grand that accompanied so many of Keys’s public performances, served her much the same way. Keys was being championed as the second coming of some singer-songwriter pop goddess. In all the pre-hype that Clive Davis helped to manufacture in the months preceding the release of Alicia Key’s debut Songs in A Minor, it was clear that Ms.