Alicia Keys Heads For NBA All-Star Halftime Performance

Alicia Keys has her next gig lined up: NBA All-Star weekend.

The singer is following up her national anthem performance at the Super Bowl with a halftime show at the February 17 game in Houston, reports MSN. Keys will join Ne-Yo, who will singe during player introductions, and John Legend, who will sing the national anthem. Gloria Rueben will sing the Canadian anthem, as well.

Nick Cannon will host the evening’s festivities the night before the NBA All-Star game, which will include performances by American Idol Phillip Phillips, Ellie Goulding, and the reunited Fall Out Boy, who will perform live for the first time in three years.

The All-Star game will feature basketball luminaries like LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. It will air live on TNT.

Keys was most recently in the news over her national anthem performance at the Super Bowl. Though Beyonce stole the show with her halftime mea culpa for lip syncing at the presidential inauguration, Keys dusted up some controversy all her own by sitting through her performance of the national anthem.

Keys sat at the piano to perform her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” causing some critics to raise issue over the fact that she was not standing nor putting her hand over her heart, reports The Huffington Post. One morning show producer opined:

“It was disrespectful. They had enough time and manpower to think of this before the performance. They could have had her stand at her piano keyboard and sing. To me and a lot of my friends, she sounded great but the visual was wrong.”

A publicist who has worked with Keys in the past rushed to defend the singer, saying:

“Alicia is a proud American and was honored to perform at the event. Her slow version of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was her own arrangement, accompanying herself on the piano, adding ‘living in the home of the brave’ at the end of the song. It’s silly to see how that was being disrespectful.”

Videos of Keys’ Super Bowl performance have been removed from the Internet by the NFL, since her particular arrangement of the national anthem is covered under copyright law.

Are you a fan of Alicia Keys? Are you looking forward to her NBA All-Star performance?