Happy Birthday Alicia

Ingeilla Moscat

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 19:19:39 -0500

Ingeilla Moscat

Estefania from Puerto Rico - @FeFa1

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:11:45 -0500

Estefania from Puerto Rico - @FeFa1

Ms. Paige - #1 Soca Artist in Toronto Canada

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:41:28 -0500

Ms. Paige - #1 Soca Artist in Toronto Canada

We've Grown So Much Together

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:28:00 -0500

Dear Alicia,

I often wonder if you know how much of an impact you’ve had on my life? It may sound weird but I still remember the day I fell in love with your music. Although I had heard the song and saw the video many times before, something just clicked one summer night when I found myself wrapped up in the “Fallin” video. All I could think is I really love this song, who is this girl? what is it about her that intrigued me so much? Many of these questions were answered when you appeared on Oprah soon after that day. You we’re so beautiful, so talented, so smart and still yet so humble. It’s hard to believe I was only 11 years old then, I’ve literally grown up with your music as the soundtrack to my life. You’ve been and continue to be a huge source of inspiration for me.

I’ve read your diarys, blogs, tweets, books, participated in your chats, book clubs, fan/fam club, watched your performances, speeches, dvds, concerts, admired and supported your work with KCA and jammed to your sweet music for 10 years now and you still never cease to amaze me. Alicia you have a beautiful heart and amazing spirit. I’ve met you only once in these 10 years in 2008 and I can’t even explain how that moment felt. I thought for sure that I would be nervous around you but I wasn’t at all. Your spirit and smile filled the room and we talked like we had known each other forever, that day meant the world to me and I will never forget it, so thank you for that.

We’ve grown so much together. It’s been beautiful to watch you grow from this very young woman to the beautiful, confident, wife and mother you are today ;-) I honestly don’t know what or who I would be today with out your music. You have inspired me to be the best ME I can become! Thank You! Now for the whole purpose of my letter lol! I want to wish you the BEST and most HAPPIEST BIRTHDAY ever!!!!! Wishing another beautiful year and many many many more! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALICIA KEYS!!! Sending you all the love in the world for your special day!

With LOVE,

Calandra (@calliediva)

Ashley Owens - Seattle Washington

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:27:05 -0500

Ashley Owens - Seattle Washington

I Love You

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:26:15 -0500

Happy Birthday Alicia,

wishing you many many many more, much love you and your family
look forward to a beautiful 2011
I LOVE YOU

WBJ

LaShonda Wilson - California

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:24:36 -0500

LaShonda Wilson - California

You Truly Are A Vessel of Light

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:23:43 -0500

Alicia,
You truly are a vessel of light, talent, and energy. I am so grateful to have experienced Africa with you, to feel the phenomenal peace you breathe into everything you do. I hope your birthday is filled with the same degree love and blessings you generously give to everyone else-you deserve it all! Happy Birthday, Alicia!
Love, Talaina Brown

You're Such A Great Person

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:21:00 -0500

!HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Alicia i hope you like the poster i made you!!! :) i hope you have the best blessings in this new year, you deserve it because you’re such a GREAT person you help others that are in need. i admire you so much you are my HERO!!! im determined to find a job and earn money to see u in concert and meet and greet you! well i hope u have the best day ever! and HAPPY BIRTHDAY again! XOXOX love,Jennifer Tapia P.S. your # 1 16 year old fan1!!!

Happy Bday

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:17:30 -0500

Alicia i would like to wish you a happy bday!! and I would like you to have this drawing as token off my appreciation for the beautiful music you have given us!
Your biggest fan: desmond manuel

Crystal Snipe - Georgia

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:16:08 -0500

Crystal Snipe - Georgia

Sweetpea's Birthday Blessing

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:12:00 -0500

Happy Birthday Sweetpea,
I’ve been calling you that for quite a few years b/c you truly are no matter how old you get. ;) I pray that your new year be filled with God’s best. May He guide you through a new journey, in knowing Him more and allowing him to use you in ways you’ve never been used before. You’ve got so much more hidden deep within that you may not even realize is there. I pray that those things be revealed to you this year. Great BIG Blessings to you this day, Love You, Hope to see you soon!

Big sis,
Tanya aka TLC179

Dear Birthday Girl

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:07:00 -0500

Dear Birthday Girl,

Happy 30th Birthday to you Mrs. Alicia Augello Cook-Dean (first birthday as a mom and wife too lol). I know that this probably the happiest moment of your life right and its only fitting that you’re adding another zero to the age. Well let me stop bringing up your age before I make you feel bad lol. But I am writing you this birthday message to tell you that I am so grateful to have you with us for another blessed year! You mean so much to my life. Your personality, music, and philanthropy is so influential tp my life. You are the only artist that I can connect to emotionally on such a high level. I don’t think I’ve loved someone whom I’ve never met so much in my entire life lol. You are truly an inspiration to me and so many other people and I hope and pray that you will continue to bless us with your many talents for many many years to come! I hope you have the best birthday a superwoman, superwife, and supermom can ever have!!!! Love you and can’t wait to hear more of your music!

Sincerely,

Anthony Ayers (@ayers0807)

Photo

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:05:43 -0500

Happy Birthday, To A Wonderful, Loving, Human Being

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 13:00:00 -0500

Inspirations are limitless, impotent to be confined to a specific creature, concept, or subject. One can be inspired by the soothing sound of rain, the view of the canvassed sky, or the smell of a single withered rose. Simple things such as these can influence us to love, hope, endure, create and achieve many other aspirations we have considered, but have yet to follow through. It’s a simple push, a drive that gives us reason to reach our potential prominence. Alicia, within the last 10 of your 30 years of breath, you have provided me an endowment of creative and emotional inspiration. For that, I thank you. Having given to me your ever lasting music, your true depiction of a humanitarian, your humble smile and eminent voice; for these things, I thank you.

There are numerous moments of inspiration that may never leave my mind, with majority being created by you. A simple lyric “you’ve got to risk it all, the freedom to fall” inspires my everyday living. I have come to the conclusion that listening to “Sure Looks Good to Me” is now a need and no longer only a pleasure. It feeds my soul and counsels me when I am in low spirits; it inspires my beliefs that one failure is not the end of the world. It instigates my sometimes doubtful thoughts that one mistake will ruin me. The lyrics remind me that perfection is not being faultless; it’s embracing and learning from each lapse in life and experiencing triumph from each one. I met you in Houston before the ever so sublime concert, As I Am. The lasting feeling and wonderment (besides the conventional butterflies and expected nervousness) was produced by the floating question of how and why someone so successful and acclaimed could/would be so modest and cheerful to everyone. That day, your humility inspired me with hope and love, and my God was I surprised at the hug you gave me. Never has anyone besides my intermediate family (excluding my father) ever given me a more memorable embrace as you did. I will admit that it boggled my mind for a few days as to why someone who never knew of me would give such a strong, bear type hug. But, that simple gesture, Alicia continues to inspire a small part of my happiness with each new day that I live.

With this letter, I wrote the feelings of many people from different states, countries, cultures and lifestyles. This is just my view, my perception of how you, a now 30 year old mother, wife, and daughter, have inspired a 21 year old girl to believe in all of her positive aspirations and goals. I am honored to say you appear many times in my handbook to lead a positive life (if it existed) and will always continue to in the following years. I hope that with my words I have inspired maybe something in you, if not I am still grateful. Thank You, for all you’ve given to me, us and the world. Happy Birthday, to a wonderful, loving, human being, and through the next decade, I’m sure there will be even more for me to confess. I will always be your fan, through the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties and ever more. Thank you, happy birthday, may God continue bless you and your family evermore.

From your loving fan, Sarah Epps.

PS. I hope you love the picture!

Inspired to Be Good

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 12:55:00 -0500

I’ll get the most formal and important part out over with right away: Happybirthday to one of the most genuine, caring, and selfless souls I’ve ever had theprivilege to witness. Three decades already… wow. Don’t stop reading now, butthere was actually a time in my life when I thought that 30 was “old”. Are you stillreading? Haven’t hit the X yet, have you? Okay; good. Now, possibly because I’m onthe better side of twenty, and staring twenty-five straight in the eye, I know howmuch more there is to accomplish, to see, to experience. I don’t think that you’re thetype to ever stop and look at your age and think, “Gee; I really am old,” but shouldyou EVER experience that moment of delusion, don’t. I mean… that’s it; don’t everthink like that.

Now that the hard part’s over with, I’m just going to take a paragraph or twoto kind explain what you mean to a stranger (let’s face it; we’re all virtual strangersin this all). The first time I heard “Fallin’” on the radio back in 2001, I’ll admit that Iwasn’t entirely shook to my core. You’re still reading, right? Good. No, MY core wasshook when I saw you perform for the very first time on Oprah. I was…. There aresimply no words to describe my amazement and bewilderment that this teeny tinylady could produce something so gut-wrenchingly true. That performance gave mycore a tiny shimmy, and from then on, I couldn’t get enough.

Let’s fast-forward a few months to October 2001. Songs In A Minor had beenout for a while, and of course I had it. Since I wasn’t necessarily allowed the freedomon the Internet that youngsters are privy to today, I was the kid (all of 14 years old)that tried his hardest to record your performances on VHS tapes. Why? Well, theanswer is simple, really; a lot of your TV appearances were on daytime TV and I wasin school at those times. Pathetic, huh? I know, right?! Anywho, in October of 2001,my world was legitimately shook to its very foundation: my uncle was shot andkilled by his nephew. In that indescribably surreal time for my family, I really didn’thave anyone there for me except my twin brother. My mother had to be there for hersister [my uncle’s wife], and my older brother was there for my cousin [the uncle’syoungest son].

We’re going to fast-forward again now: September 2004 this time. My oldestuncle literally drops dead of a massive heart attack. This time, I had The Diary ofAlicia Keys to help me through it. The loss was a massive one for both my family andme but once again, the power of music pulled me through (here’s an example: beforemy uncle passed away, Diary was my mother’s ABSOLUTE favorite track by you;now she can’t even listen to the opening chords to it. That’s how much I played thatone song).
Fast-forward to 2007: my foundation is literally swept away from me whenmy stepbrother is killed in a completely avoidable car accident. This was the onetime in my life when I just didn’t want to be anymore. I felt that everything was justcompounded over all those past losses, but this one, being that he was essentially
my equal, one of us, MY BROTHER…. Nothing could really compare to it. It was thekind of grief that made it impossible to cry. It was, up until a few months ago, theonly loss I never spoke of; only a handful of my newest friends (read: about threeout of well over 40) even know I’d ever had a stepbrother.

The loss of my brother was undoubtedly the most painful and unbearablething I’ve ever lived, but somehow I pulled through it. What was the savinggrace that helped me through such a tumultuous period? Your song No One. Myinterpretation of it was that no single person, dimension, or plane could EVER comebetween my love and admiration for that dude. I remember the first time I heard theline “Everything’s gonna be alright;” the feeling of guilt was immediately lifted frommy soul. That’s the effect your music, your art, your actions have had on me sincethe moment I saw you do you thang (yes, I said “thang”) on Oprah.

This entire thing has not been an attempt to garner a pity-party. Not by along shot. My point is that through the most unbelievably trying times of my lifeI was essentially on my own. And as cliché as it might sound, all I had to help mefind my way through the depression was your music. There was a time that I feltinsane anger and resentment for my family for just never really being there for mewhen I needed them the most; this is something I’ve never even been able to admitto myself, but the underlying themes of forgiveness you sing of showed me thatthey’d benefit no one in the end. Every album has come at a pivotal and life changingmoment of my life; the most recent came upon me finally discovering the person Iwant to be, and the life I want to lead.
The point of this all is for me to let you know how you have impactedand inspired my life. Oh yes, you have inspired me as well, specifically in yourphilanthropic efforts. Through your work with KCA, I’ve felt more compelled thanever to realize my dream of creating a foundation to benefit people that cannotafford critical medications. My dream impacts those that are stuck in that gray area:they make too much to receive government assistance, but make too little to get themeds on their own. I hope to get the foundation running full steam by the time I’m30… so… that gives me about six years to get it all in order.

That’s what this is mostly about to me: you’ve impacted and helped so manythrough your words, so this is my attempt to show you how well you’ve done yourjob. No, how well you’ve LIVED your PASSION. It’s my attempt to show that eventhrough the minutest action, be it helping an older person get something from ashelf in a store or raising a million dollars to fight AIDS, every life can be changed forthe better. You’ve shown me that, and for that, I thank you more than I, an Englishmajor, can ever find the words to say. Happy birthday, Alicia Keys; to countlessmore decades to come, and as I always say:

—“Dream big, do bigger.”Jason Melton, (@JJ_Newberry)ADDITIONAL READING: http://jjnewberry.tumblr.com/post/834813518/the-power-of-music

Happy 30th Birthday

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 12:51:00 -0500

Wishing you a very happy 30th birthday! May God continue to bless you as you continue to change the world! Sending you lots of love :)

Jaleesa S

Jessica Prater - New York

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 12:48:12 -0500

Jessica Prater - New York

Enjoli - New Orleans

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 09:52:00 -0500

Enjoli - New Orleans

Mariola - Poland

Sun, 23 Jan 2011 09:49:00 -0500

Mariola - Poland