With Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz for parents, it’d be surprising if the couple’s 6-year-old son, Egypt, wasn’t showing signs of musical prowess.
“He’s super musical,” Keys, 35, said in an interview on Friday’s On Air With Ryan Seacrest. “He always has been, since he was a kid. You could play a rhythm on a drum and he’d duplicate it, or you could do a beat box with your mouth and he’ll duplicate it.”
While Seacrest urged Keys to admit whether her child is a “musical prodigy,” the “In Common” singer revealed that Egypt is working hard to develop his talent.
“He’s playing piano and he’s getting good at it, he’s out there practicing,” she said. “It takes practice! No one is good for no reason, so he’s working on it.”
In addition to Egypt, Keys — who released her brand new studio album, Here, on Friday — and her husband are also parents to 1-year-old son, Genesis, while Beatz (real name: Kasseem Dean) also has three older children from previous relationships.
“We really have come together in such a beautiful way to support each other and teach our kids that life is about love … and that family has no definition except love,” Keys recently told USA Today. “We’re taught in our fairy tales that it’s the mommy and the daddy and the brother and the sister and the doggy and the fence… but there’s a beautiful variety.”
Keys sings about that dynamic on the Here single “Blended Family (What You Do For Love).” On Friday, she stopped by Elvis Duran and the Morning Show in New York City to perform a special piano version of the song. She encourages fans to take time to process the album in its entirety — not just in pieces.
“This album is the most raw, the most honest, the most vulnerable, the most urgent, the most fun, and powerful album that I’ve ever experienced and created and it’s actually one whole body of work,” she explained. “This one you can listen from the beginning to the end, in fact you kind of have to listen from the beginning to the end to really feel the entire story and what it’s talking about.”