John Legend, Alicia Keys to battle it out on piano for Verzuz Juneteenth celebration

Verzuz has set what's likely to be a piano duel for the ages.

The Instagram Live series, which has been staging beat battles between musicians since March, starting with Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, will present a special musical duel between John Legend and Alicia Keys as a Juneteenth celebration on Friday, June 19. The musicians will face off in a "battle of the pianos" starting at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

Other Verzuz matchups have included T-Pain and Lil Jon, Ludacris and Nelly, and most recently Kirk Franklin and Fred Hammond. A Legend-Keys battle has been brewing for a while now; in May, the "All of Me" singer told 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."

Legend's seventh studio album, Bigger Love, is set to drop the day of the battle. Keys' seventh album, Alicia, had been slated for release earlier this year before being delayed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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