SUPERSTAR Alicia Keys on Friday debuted her new album live in front of a packed crowd at the world’s fair in Dubai — a lively pop performance full of soaring vocals and piano solos. “We can live on the air,” she crooned from beneath the vast shimmering dome at Dubai’s Expo, a fortified stage ringed by riveted — and COVID-19 vaccinated — fans bouncing, grooving and nodding to the beat. “Baby, baby, we gonna rock forever.” Keys, 40, sauntered onstage in a glittery gold bodysuit, her hair in a tight bun, and jammed out her eighth studio album along with old classics. The 15-time Grammy Award-winning singer’s sprawling double album, “KEYS,” includes two versions of each song: “Originals,” produced by Keys, and “Unlocked,” produced by Keys and Michael Williams II, who goes by Mike Will Made-It. ” Her piano-driven “Originals” consists of emotional, intimate soul tunes oozing with love and longing, while “Unlocked” showcases upbeat, more clubby pop versions of the same tracks. She presented the album’s premise to the crowd as an experiment Friday night. “Tell me which version you like better,” she said before performing starkly different versions of the same track, one swooning and one synthesized, asking for the audience’s preferences through their cheers. Her Dubai set also featured hits like “Girl on Fire,” “Empire State of Mind” and “New Day,” booming anthems to which the audience danced and sang along wholeheartedly. Much of the new material maintains her characteristic R&B backbone and themes of soul-searching, desire and devotion. But the “Unlocked” tracks offer a surprisingly distinct and stylized twist. Keys’ previous album “Alicia,” released in the thick of the pandemic last year, focused on more topical and raw themes, with vulnerable confessions and references to virus-battered health workers and ordinary people’s struggles to scrape by. Over the dizzying past two decades of her career, Keys has become a global pop and R&B icon — as well as a bestselling memoir author, actress, activist, entrepreneur, Grammy host, philanthropist and pioneer of a #nomakeup in public trend. (SD-Agencies) | 