"Keeping It Real" is a jazzy, sassy, soulful serenade of thirteen tracks that span the spectrum of the landscape of the blues. Produced and recorded mostly in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The producer Ollan Christopher spent several years there gathering the finest musicians to record the music before coming back to their home studio, John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Studio, where Zakiya laid her final vocals. The results are an expansive project that find her not only performing a duet with her dad, but also covering a few classics and ultimately, singing the blues in Spanish! "Keeping It Real" does just that with the opening track "Hug U Kiss U," an upbeat, up tempo, bass heavy cover of a John Lee Hooker original. On "Cold, Cold Feeling" penned by Zakiya with her producer husband Ollan Bell, she slows the pace way down with a blues notion of love lost and gone astray. With "Desconfio" Zakiya proves that she is not new to the blues, but indeed true to the blues, offering her own Spanish language rendition of the Latin American classic. The vocals of the late John Lee Hooker himself provide the lead segue for the haunting "End of the World Blues," on track six. While covering one of her dad's most famous tunes, "One Bourbon One Scotch One Beer" Zakiya rocks with the assuredness of one who knows her roots and knows them well! She takes us "Over the Top" with purity of tone that simply cradles the heart with emotion on track eleven. Then Zakiya all but shuts it down on the last track when she joins her late dad for a duet on "Rock These Blues Away." The Detroit native made her debut performance in 1991 with her dad in Oakland, CA. She has since gone on to perform and record internationally, establishing her own voice in a genre dominated by men. A loyal advocate of the blues, Zakiya is committed to preserving the legacy that nourished her. "