Alicia Keys delivers surprise performance at Barrio Logan skate shop

Saturday’s Chicano Park festivities in Barrio Logan got a surprise guest with a performance by singer Alicia Keys.

Social media lit up with footage of Keys singing atop the roof of Arts-Rec, a neighborhood skate shop. Keys was joined by her husband, rapper/producer Kasseem Dean (a.k.a. Swizz Beatz).

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The couple’s appearance coincided with the opening of “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys” at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla. They bought a home in the area in 2019.

The exhibition, which showcases the couple’s personal collection, “champions artists who continue to shape culture and move us forward,” Keys wrote on her Instagram account.

“To experience that together, in a time when it’s needed more than ever is truly unstoppable!! Thank you for bringing your magic,” she posted. Swizz (a.k.a. Kasseem Dean, Keys’ husband) shared photos on his own account of himself taking his grandmother to the exhibition, calling it “a moment in history.”

The appearance came around two months after the Deans bought every photograph in an exhibition by two local artists, Oscar Cruz and MJ Pimentel, at another Barrio Logan business, Por Vida.

“I think about 95 or so percent of the photos were taken in Barrio Logan, of the community, of the people that are there, the actual grandmas, the grandpas, the kids, the park,” co-owner Milo Lorenzana told KPBS at the time. “just highlighting the things that create the fabric of Barrio Logan.”

We contacted Arts-Rec seeking comment on the Deans’ appearance, but the store has not responded.