The ONE and (RED) Campaigns hold 2011 World AIDS Day panel discussion with special guest Alicia Keys.

Photo: Getty Images

From R&B and marriage, to a brand new baby boy and now a Broadway debut, the one and only Alicia Keys (a phenomenal singer/songwriter in her own right) is now making moves to touch the ears, hearts and minds of many with more behind the scenes work in fields of entertainment we never saw coming.

In fact, the singer’s latest work is so brand new and so exquisite that fans this morning on the Tom Joyner Morning Show were enlightened by the singer’s first foray into the wonderful world of Broadway theater. If you already thought this woman was superbly talented before, get a load of the conversation with Tom Joyner as Alicia Keys discusses the music she’s been working on and how her baby boy with producer Swizz Beatz is doing when it comes to the development of his voice at only 16-months old.

RELATED LINKS:

Alicia Keys to Compose Original Music for Broadway Production “Stick Fly”

Alicia Keys’ Husband Swizz Beats Named Chair of Bronx Charter School

Alicia Keys’ World AIDS Day Documentary Airs on TV

Alicia Keys Donates Instruments to Alma Mater

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The first “Bronx Arts Recognize” event was held last week to honor Beatz, along with four other Bronx Arts supporters.

Beatz has been a school supporter for several years and as a member of the “Friends of Bronx Arts” committee, he will continue to help the charter school with fundraising initiatives for after-school programs, which offers academic and artistic activities for students in grades K-5.

Rock Band U2′s lead singer and fellow AIDS Activist Bono said that Keys has “lioness energy” and that her role as a new mother won’t allow her to “let other mothers suffer.”

He made the comments at the premiere of “Keep a Child Alive with Alicia Keys,” a documentary which followed a visit to South Africa during last year’s World Cup with a pregnant Keys and five Americans. It airs on Showtime Dec. 1, which is World AIDS Day.

Keys started her charity, Keep a Child Alive, in 2003. It assists those affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.

She says she hopes the film reaches out to those who want to help, but can’t make it to Africa.

“Even if you never have been able to travel there, or if you never can, that doesn’t mean you can’t travel with us and really see it for yourself,” she said.

Bono says Keys has what it takes to make a difference in Africa, and around the world. “Everyone’s got heart, but actually you have to have the head for this,” he said. “You have to be tough and strategic, you have to be demanding, (and) the money has to be spent well.” If the money isn’t spent well, he said, people get annoyed, “and so all these things take a certain intellectual rigor.”

Keys is also celebrating another new project. She composed music for the Broadway play “Stick Fly,” which debuts next week.

The singer has also launched an online contest where people can share how they would use $1,000 to improve the world and make it a better place. The contest, which is part of Western Union’s World of Betters campaign, will end December 15. World of Betters is also being promoted by rapper K’Naan, who will host an event in Johannesburg, and Indian singer Sunidhi Chauhan, who will host an event in Mumbai, India.

“As a proud graduate of the Professional Performing Arts School, I thought about the students there who are in desperate need of new musical equipment to help them learn their craft,” said Alicia Keys. “Because right now, my alma mater is underfunded and oversubscribed—and I hope to make this better for them, so they can follow their dreams. As the Co-founder of Keep a Child Alive, I constantly see that there are so many ways the world can be made a better place. That’s why I’m so excited to work on the World of Betters initiative and I know for a fact, that there are so many people out there with amazing ideas that can show how even a small change can make a big impact.”

The public will vote and determine the top 500 entries for World of Betters contest. Afterwards, a panel of judges will select 100 winners who will receive $1,000 to create their idea.

Keys, already a multiple award-winning singer/songwriter, is drafting original music for the upcoming play “Stick Fly,” representatives for the show announced Tuesday.

“Stick Fly” focuses on an affluent African American family that has gathered for a weekend at its Martha’s Vineyard home and stars Dulé Hill, Mekhi Phifer, Tracie Thoms, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Rosie Benton and Condola Rashad.

Tony-nominated direct Kenny Leon (“Fences,” “A Raisin in the Sun”) will direct the play, written by Lydia Diamond. “Stick Fly” begins previews Nov. 18 at the Cort Theatre and will open on Broadway on Dec. 8.

“This is a story that everybody can relate to,” Keys said in a statement. “I’m passionate about this play because it is so beautifully written and portrays black America in a way that we don’t often get to see in entertainment. I know it will touch audiences, who will find a piece of themselves somewhere inside this house.”

Alicia Keys also serves as one of the show’s producers.

Recently, Christina Elizabeth, 23, an aspiring Houston-based singer, claims she “lost” her cell phone that contained inappropriate threads of text messages from Alicia Keys’ husband, music producer Swizz Beatz. And by some turn of bad luck, it was discovered by someone who saw the value in sharing the contents of said device with a gossip website. So now there are screenshots of alleged sext conversations between her and producer/artist Swizz Beatz. Ouch!

According to Christina Elizabeth, this has forced her to come from behind Twitter to talk about her (alleged) relationship with Swizz Beatz.

During a recent interview, Christina Elizabeth claimed that she and Swizz have had a thing going on since 2007. At the time Swizz was still married to his first wife, Mashonda, who confronted Christina when she found out her husband was creeping. Since divorcing Mashonda and marrying Alicia Keys, Christina said she and Swizz Beatz have had limited contact (and they haven’t seen each other) until recently. Lately, she claims, he’s been trying to get that “old thing” back.

Asked why she has gone public with this alleged information, Christina Elizabeth claims, “because it was super embarrassing”, and she wanted to set the record straight since she has received so much negativity. She also says, she hasn’t accepted any money from Swizz, they had a friendship that turned sexual occasionally, and that she also wasn’t using Swizz in any way to help boost her aspiring musical career as a singer.

Christina insists that music or fame is not the motive for her revealing the details of her alleged affair with Alicia Keys’ husband. She says, she doesn’t condone affair with married men, but that she has been cheated on in the past, and hurt people sometimes hurt other people.

We all know that images of text messages can be photoshopped, but Swizz Beatz (real name Kasseem Dean) did cheat on his first wife, so it is possible he is doing the same thing to Alicia Keys. But since I don’t know the truth, I wish all innocent parties “the best” and all guilty parties “the chance to get right with the world”.

Anyway… if you lost your phone, would the contents of your chats and texts get you in trouble if they were made available to friends, employers and significant other?

Russian-born Zhanna Andrianova, who performs under the name Jahna Sebastian, met Swizz Beatz in a London club in 2007, and their daughter was born in May 2008. In ’09, he traveled to London with Keys to take a paternity test that proved he was the father.

The settlement comes after a prolonged back-and-forth between NY-based lawyers for Andrianova and Beatz, who has four children by four different women. An attorney for Swizz Beatz told reporters that he supports each of his children, adding, “Mr. Dean has never failed to deliver on his responsibility to his children.”

Sources say Swizz Beatz has been paying interim child support for his daughter with Andrianova, and the official settlement was delayed due to her inability to travel to the US for court appearances, and her refusal to accept a settlement he offered a year ago.

Andrianova has been fighting visa problems in the UK, and in ’09 won a battle to prevent her from being deported to Russia. Lawyers for Andrianova say Swizz Beatz also agreed to pay her $42,000 legal fees as part of the settlement, signed by him in July and her in August, and a judge at Manhattan Family Court granted them a money judgment Thursday to pursue payment, which could have resulted in his assets being seized or bank accounts frozen. Following this, a check for full payment was sent by Swizz Beatz to her lawyer, divorce attorney Raoul Felder on Friday.

Beatz married Alicia Keys in July 2010, and she gave birth to their son Egypt in October of that year. He also has a son Prince Nasir, born in 2000, with Nicole Levy, and another son, Kasseem Dean Jr., born in 2006, with his former wife Mashonda Tifrere.

He posted a clip of his first day on the job saying, “The key is to infiltrate the market in a cool way,” adding that the key to success is for “things to happen organically.”

And the folks at Lotus seem to like him a lot.

“Like Group Lotus, he means business: He’s a risk taker with considerable credentials, including music producer, rapper, designer and painter,” a Lotus rep said in a statement. “(He’s) the perfect man to add to the Lotus lineup.”

Now this is what you call being “on your grind.”

The Chris Robinson-directed promo clip, which reportedly cost seven figures, mixes art, fashion, choreography, and fast cars. Robinson said, “It’s about connecting all the continents on the planet on the world stage. This is not a music video—this is a big movie.”

A shortened version has already hit airwaves as a Reebok commercial.

Alicia Keys Goes Public With Baby Egypt In NYC [PHOTOS]

Alicia Keys And Swizz Beatz Rock Matching Outfits [PHOTOS]