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\n Photo: John Nacion\/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)\n <\/p>\n
As the Knicks game went into its final seconds on Saturday night, the broadcast naturally played \u201cEmpire State of Mind\u201d between plays \u2026 per usual. But it was a song selection that hit especially hard while watching the Knicks secure victory on one of the several flatscreens set up at the Tribeca Film Festival\u2019s closing-night party, following the premiere of the Alicia Keys documentary, Girl From Hell\u2019s Kitchen.<\/p>\n
During the screening of the film, about a quintessential New York City icon staging a musical about her Hell\u2019s Kitchen upbringing, you could still feel the audience grow antsy as they were forced to miss the first half of the Knicks game to watch the documentary. Even Tribeca founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal, who introduced the film, acknowledged the less-than-ideal timing. \u201cAnd while our hearts may be in San Antonio tonight, we are 100 percent here for Alicia Keys,\u201d De Niro said before Rosenthal led the audience in a chant of, \u201cGo New York, go New York, go!\u201d<\/p>\n
Naturally, the second the film ended, the audience \u2014 many of whom were clad in blue and orange \u2014 jumped at the chance to check in on the game. Though the moderator of the talkback, Mimi Vald\u00e9s, gave a score update when she took the stage, the crowd was still littered with phones discreetly playing the game as Keys and director One9 discussed the film \u2014 which at least fit the night\u2019s theme of New York pride.<\/p>\n
Though the documentary\u2019s primary peg was Keys bringing her semi-autobiographical musical Hell\u2019s Kitchen to Broadway, the film attempted to cover an enormous amount of ground. It sought to paint a detailed, B-roll filled picture of the Hell\u2019s Kitchen neighborhood to contextualize the singer\u2019s upbringing. \u201cHell\u2019s Kitchen is a character \u2026 it had to be explained,\u201d Keys said after the screening, as did the Manhattan Plaza subsidized-artist housing where she grew up, and the many other celebrities who once resided there, from Larry David to Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet (and other, non-Knicks figures, of course).<\/p>\n
It also delved into her relationship with both of her parents \u2014 echoing the stage show itself \u2014 and the key role that both Clive Davis and Oprah Winfrey played in launching her career. As you can imagine, Winfrey mouthing along to the lyrics of \u201cFallin\u2019\u201d during a performance on her talk show was a pivotal endorsement. But given how much the documentary strove to cover, the most compelling parts felt like teases \u2014 like her mother\u2019s own stalled show-business dreams and the 13-year process of creating the musical (which we hear about more than see), both of which easily could have been the sole focus. Even still, highlights included her working with Maleah Joi Moon through a challenging part of the cast recording, Keys telling her childhood music teacher Aziza Miller that Kecia Lewis\u2019s character was inspired by her, and the singer\u2019s 9-year-old son, Genesis, filming her on opening night with a camcorder of his own \u2014 asking hard-hitting questions like who involved in the musical was bad. He should have been made an executive producer, at least.<\/p>\n
The walk from the theater to the after-party at Capitale on Bowery was a reminder that we were in the midst of a monocultural New York City moment. Bars were overflowing with crowds spilling out into the street, the Empire State Building was lit up in blue and orange, and the game was being projected onto buildings for strangers to congregate around. There couldn\u2019t have been a better scene to step out into after watching a documentary romanticizing the magic of the city.<\/p>\n
Not long after the end of the Knicks\u2019 victory, Keys emerged in a Knicks letterman jacket \u2014 starting her performance from the indoor balcony before making her way down to the stage in the center of the party \u2014 where she performed songs that she grew up with (Barbra Streisand\u2019s \u201cMemories\u201d) as well as her own hits (\u201cFallin\u2019\u201d had the whole room singing along like Oprah). But she wasn\u2019t alone, bringing out Nas to perform \u201cN.Y. State of Mind\u201d as well as newly minted Tony-winner Shoshana Bean (who played Jersey, a fictionalized version of Keys\u2019 mother, in Hell\u2019s Kitchen). Somehow making it all the way downtown from her Lost Boys performance at the Palace Theatre, Bean took the stage to blood-curdling screams (mine) as she delivered staggering vocal gymnastics on \u201cPawn It All\u201d with ease. Nas and Shoshana Bean \u2026 together at last.<\/p>\n
Finally, the performance ended with what the whole room was holding their breath for \u2014 and the song that had been ringing out throughout the entirety of New York City that night \u2014 \u201cEmpire State of Mind,\u201d introduced via Keys first covering Billy Joel\u2019s \u201cNew York State of Mind\u201d before launching into her own anthem. The elated room sang every single word. \u201cNew York City!\u201d she shouted out to the crowd as her Tribeca premiere turned Knicks celebration concluded, \u201cThis was a New York moment, never forget it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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