Keys was born in the Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem, in New York City, New York, the daughter and only child of Teresa "Terria" Augello, a paralegal and part-time actress, and Craig Cook, a flight attendant. Keys' mother is of Irish and Italian descent, and her father is Jamaican. Keys describes herself as comfortable with her biracial heritage : "I grew up in New York, and thank God, I never had to go through that in regards to, 'You're not black enough, you're not white enough,' the whole kind of white/black-mixture thing. I never had to go through that. I went through prejudices and all, surely. But I never had to battle with those two parts of me."

Keys' parents separated during her early childhood, and she was subsequently raised by her mother during her formative years in Hell's Kitchen, also in Manhattan. In 1985, Keys and a group of other girls played the parts of Rudy Huxtable's sleepover guests in an episode of The Cosby Show called "Slumber Party".a[›] She