Alicia Keys And Swizz Beatz Honored At The Gordon Parks Foundation Awards

Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz received their flowers.

Alicia Keys and her husband, Swizz Beatz, received their flowers on Tuesday, May 21, at the Gordon Parks Foundation Awards.

The celebrity couple was in their hometown New York City for the awards dinner and auction that honored their art and activism alongside Colin Kaepernick, Mickalene Thomas, and Civil Rights luminary Myrlie Evers-Williams.

Others who were celebrated included the 2024 Gordon Parks Foundation Art Fellows image maker Larry W. Cook, artist Tonika Lewis Johnson, and author D. Watkins, Vogue reports.

“It’s just natural since the minute we met,” Keys told The Associated Press of Swizz Beatz. “There’s a way that each of us has our own way of creating and just by being inspire each other. I love this man. I love all of his brilliance. And it’s beautiful to have that kind of reciprocity.”

The annual star-studded event is aimed at honoring Parks, the late photographer, composer, author, poet, and film director, who gained prominence as a documentary photojournalist who highlighted civil rights, poverty, and the Black experience from the 1940s through 1970s.

Others in attendance included Usher, Spike Lee, Gayle King, Chelsea Clinton, Lena Waithe, and Maxwell Osborne. “It’s [the gala] a memory; it’s about my father who I deeply miss,” Parks Bailey, Parks’ daughter, said. “It’s a celebration of Black art and moving forward.”

The night included a soulful performance from the Anthony Morgan Inspirational Choir of Harlem, a special tribute to the late actor Richard Roundtree (who played John Shaft in Parks’ classic 1971 film, Shaft) a live auction, a surprise performance by Patti Smith, and closing remarks from D-Nice who turned the gala into a disco party.

“It’s the night where Gordon Parks is no longer just an icon of the 20th century, he’s a 21st-century legend,” Peter W. Kunhardt Jr., executive director of the foundation, said.