Alicia Keys Talks About AIDS, Music

Grammy award-winning R&B superstar Alicia Keys is busy with a world concert tour and a budding acting career, but she still finds time to help children with AIDS in Africa.

In an e-mail interview with The Korea Times, Keys talked about her documentary ``Alicia in Africa: Journey to the Motherland,'' her music and upcoming movie.

Keys, co-founder of the Keep a Child Alive foundation, recently released a documentary of her trip to South Africa, Uganda and Kenya. Directed by South African filmmaker Earle Sebastian, it shows inspiring stories of children and families affected by AIDS and Keep a Child Alive's projects such as providing anti-retroviral medicine for children with AIDS.

``It is a truly remarkably uplifting, inspiring and fantastic documentary, just really about the resilience and the beauty of life there. It's not something that makes you feel helpless and hopeless after you've seen it. Instead, it makes you feel totally motivated and excited,'' she said.

The documentary can be viewed or downloaded for free on www.aliciainafrica.com. Keys is very passionate about helping people with AIDS in Africa, and hopes people will be inspired by the documentary and make donations.

``We're so confident that people are going to be moved by what they see that they're going to want to donate right there. I think it's a really innovative way to get people involved in what's going on and not make them feel like they're forced to donate. It makes them feel inspired to become involved,'' she said.

Keys is still considered one of the best singer-songwriters around today. For her third album ``As I Am," the 27-year-old American artist confessed she was more experimental with her music.