Alicia Keys & John Legend to Face-Off in a Special Juneteenth Verzuz Battle
In what’s likely to be the greatest piano duel of our time, Alicia Keys and John Legend are going to headline the Juneteenth edition of the Instagram Live battle series, Verzuz.
The creators of the wildly popular series, Timbaland and Swizz Beatz announced the “battle of the pianos” yesterday, confirming it would be taking place on Friday, June 19.
Verzuz battles usually take place on Saturdays, however, this date is a special one because it commemorates the day slavery was abolished on June 19, 1865, also known as black freedom day or Juneteenth.
A Legend-Keys battle has been brewing for a while now. In May, Legend revealed to Nick Cannon in a radio interview that he’d be open to a piano duel with Keys.
“What I do love about the way it’s been going so far is we’re seeing producers and writers, more than just artists,” Legend said at the time. “Because the producers and writers, what’s so cool about it, is you didn’t maybe know they produced this song, or know they were behind that. For us, for me and Alicia, you know it’s our song, because we are the front person for them, we were on the radio singing them.”
The R&B legends are the latest in a series of iconic face-offs such as T-Pain vs. Lil Jon, Nelly vs. Ludacris, and Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. To watch Alice Keys and John Legend battle it out on Friday tune in to Instagram at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.
