Alicia Keys and mother Terria Joseph during the “Smokin' Aces” premiere after party.Photo:L. Cohen/WireImage
L. Cohen/WireImage
According toSmithsonian Magazine, Joseph, born Terria Augello, moved from Ohio to New York City to pursue her dream of being an actress.
During a brief relationship with Craig Cook, who was a flight attendant, perThe New York Times, she got pregnant andgave birthto her first and only child on Jan. 25, 1981.
Keys toldO Magazinein a 2004 interview that her mother and father were “never really together” and that Joseph worked two or three jobs to make ends meet and help her daughter pursue her dreams.
The Scottish-Italian single mom enrolled the “Diary” singer in piano lessons when she was 7. Even when Keys begged her to drop the lessons because they didn’t have much money, Joseph refused.
“She’s so strong,” Keys toldO Magazineat the time. “When I was younger, there were times when I’d look at her and think, ‘Wow, it’s just you and me.’ "
So, who is Alicia Keys' mom? Here’s everything to know about Terria Joseph and her relationship with the singer.
She was born in Detroit
Alicia Keys and her mother Terria Joseph arrive to Clive Davis' pre-Grammy Gala on February 22, 2003 in New York City.Frank Micelotta/Getty
Frank Micelotta/Getty
According to Keys' 2020 memoirMore Myself: A Journey, Joseph was born in Detroit to Donna Jean and Joseph “Little Joe” Augello in 1950. She was the fourth born of nine children.
Keys' grandmother was an accomplished pianist and vocalist. Her grandfather was a disc jockey who moved the family to Toledo, Ohio, when Joseph was 6 years old. When he died of cardiac arrest six years later, all of the children who could work got jobs to help support the family.
“Throughout junior high and high school, my mother weeded yards, worked at the National Biscuit Company, even painted backstops at the baseball field,” Keys wrote in her book. “In her quiet moments, scarce as they were, Mommy dreamed of taking the path her father had once chosen: a career in the arts.”
She moved to New York City to pursue acting
Alicia Keys and her mom Terria Joseph.Alicia Keys Instagram
Alicia Keys Instagram
Joseph fell in love with dancing and acting when she younger, and after graduating high school, she was accepted into New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and moved to the Big Apple. During the 2015 Harlem School of the Arts Gala, Joseph spoke about how her artistic pursuits and interests shaped both her and her daughter’s lives.
“From the moment Alicia was born, I tried to juggle motherhood and my passion for acting, singing and dancing,” she said in a speech at the event, perVariety. “Today, when I look at her, I see that my taking her to Broadway musicals via the half-priced ticket line, my dragging her to both my rehearsals and her auditions or ballet classes or piano lessons … must have inspired her!”
She has talked about her relationship with motherhood
Alicia Keys and mother Terria Jospeh attend the Alicia Keyes “As I Am” Tour Wrap Celebration on June 18, 2008.Rob Loud/Getty
Rob Loud/Getty
“I got pregnant —withprotection,” she wrote. “People want to come through, don’t they? And if you’re the vessel, you’d better accept it.”
Keys told PEOPLE in 2020 that writing about her own struggle of deciding whether or not to move forward with her second pregnancymade her feel closerto her mother’s story.
“It wasn’t until writing this that I realized, ‘Oh s—, she chose me’, even through all the difficulties,” Keys said. “How would she ever know what I was brought here to do? In a way we are parallel, but I didn’t even know that.”
She raised Keys in Hell’s Kitchen
Despite the hardships, Joseph was determined to provide for her daughter and support her talents. So when a friend gave them an old, upright piano, she insisted Keys learn how to play it.
“That gift is one of the main reasons I’m playing today,” she told the publication. “I wrote my first song — a tune about my grandfather, my Fa-Fa, who’d passed away — on that piano.”
Keys said her mother was strict
Alicia Keys and Terria Joseph attend “A Cabaret Evening” on April 2, 2003 in New York City.Sara Jaye/Getty
Sara Jaye/Getty
In Keys' neighborhood, trouble was always right around the corner. The singerwrote in her 2020 bookthat while she excelled in academics — graduating high school at 16 — she rebelled. As much as her mother would allow, anyway.
“At any one of the shops on the street around the corner from our apartment a kid could get anything: a fake ID (like the one I used to sneak into a club called Tunnel), a fistful of blunts (I smoked my share), a pack of condoms (which led to the used one that somehow got lost under the couch on the afternoon I lost my virginity),” she wrote. “My mother had to be strict as a matter of my survival.”
She was often mistaken for Keys' manager
Alicia Keys arrives at the 81st Annual Academy Awards on February 22, 2009 in Hollywood, California.Steve Granitz/WireImage
Steve Granitz/WireImage
In her memoir,More Myself, the singer wrote, “Thankfully, race was never a part of what made me feel guarded,” when she was growing up with her mom in New York City, and shared words her mom had spoken to her in order to reassure her of her value.“You’re the best of both worlds,” my mother would often remind me. And she was right. Yet since my mother understood that America would compel me to choose, she raised me with an awareness that’s still intact: I am a Black girl.”
She’s an actress
Alicia Keys and Terria Jospeh attend Keep A Child Alive’s 7th annual Black Ball on September 30, 2010 in New York City.Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Joseph has continued to act in various projects both onstage and in front of the camera. In 2021, sheposted on Instagramabout her one-woman show that she wrote and starred in, and she’s also played small roles in shows likeEmpire.
“We get to announce the ultimate dream — the dream that my mother chased from a little girl, that brought her here, which is the reason why I’m here, which is the reason why this city raised me, and the reason why I can even tell this story,” the singer said.
She’s a grandmother
Alicia Keys and her son Egypt Daoud Dean performing at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 14, 2019.Frank Micelotta/Fox/Picturegroup/Shutterstock
Frank Micelotta/Fox/Picturegroup/Shutterstock
Keys and her husband, rapper and producerSwizz Beatz, share two children together: Egypt Daoud and Genesis Ali. Beatz also has three children — Prince Nasir, Kasseem Jr. and Nicole — from a previous relationship.
Joseph occasionallyshares photos of her grandchildrenon Instagram and has been seen attending big family events like birthdays. For Genesis' 7th birthday in 2021,Keys shared a videoof Joseph with herself and her children as they sang Genesis “Happy Birthday.”
source: people.com
