Who is Nicole Dean, Alicia Keys’ stepdaughter? The child of Jahna Sebastian and Swizz Beatz just celebrated her sweet 16, and was seen at the Blink Twice premiere with the ‘If I Ain’t Got You’ singer

Nicole Dean is the daughter of Swizz Beatz and Jahna Sebastian

Nicole Dean was born to rapper and producer Swizz Beatz and musician Jahna Sebastian on May 22, 2008. Beatz reportedly started dating the “Empire State of Mind” singer the same year that Dean was born.

Beatz is of Jamaican and Puerto Rican descent, per IMDB, while Sebastian has South Indian and Russian heritage.

Alicia Keys asked Nicole Dean to call her “Umi”

In her memoir More Myself: A Journey, Keys revealed that she asked her stepchildren to call her “Umi”, the Arabic word for mother, rather than “stepmum”.

However, Sebastian wasn’t too fond of this suggestion, as was evident from her declaration on Instagram: “I am the only mother to my child … No one else will be called any kind of ‘mum’ name in English, Arabic, not an ‘umi’ or anything else in other language by her [Dean].”

The beef continued when Beatz clapped back with an Instagram post of his own. Per her father, Nicole “chose to call [Alicia Keys] ‘umi’”. Sebastian later claimed that the post caused her to receive “violent threats” from fans.

Previously, Beatz’s ex-wife Mashonda Dean, who is mother to his son Kasseem Jr, also expressed her disapproval of the “Umi” title when she told Sister 2 Sister Magazine, “You’re not his umi. You just met my son … if you want to be a stepmother, that’s great. Be a stepmother. But don’t think that it’s OK to make a kid call you ‘umi’ or ‘mummy.’”

She was “best singer” at prom

On July 5, Dean took to Instagram to post a series of pictures with friends attending prom night. The young woman looked lovely in what appeared to be a blue dress accessorised with a necklace. She wore a sash with the title of “best singer” – which doesn’t come as a surprise given her musical family. The girl squad seen in her posts appeared to dance the night away while looking as happy as can be.

She’s into music like her parents

If you didn’t guess from her sash already, Dean is interested in music. When she was younger, she revealed on the radio show I’m in Radio during her mum’s album listening party that she might be considering music as a future career, and agreed that she is “a child that’s born to make music”.

Sebastian also shared that her daughter would accompany her for recording sessions where she’d be “working on her stuff”. Her father has also posted pictures of her in the studio, hinting at her interest in music.

She’s a Lady Gaga fan

Her mum taught her martial arts

In addition to her musical chops, Sebastian also passed on her knowledge of martial arts to her daughter. A video uploaded on the YouTube channel Multivizionmusic shows the singer teaching her daughter some moves and bonding with her.