GEOFF BENNETT: The art exhibition with a high profile and a long name, Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys, recently opened in Richmond, Virginia, after stops in Brooklyn, Atlanta and Minneapolis.

Celebrating the contributions of contemporary artists, it spans 20th century icons like photographer Gordon Parks to today's emerging talent.

I sat down with the music power couple behind the exhibition, Alicia Keys and Kasseem Dean, better known as Swizz Beatz, about how they became art collectors and the meaning behind this expansive collection.

It's part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

(CHEERING) GEOFF BENNETT: This is no ordinary museum opening celebration because what's inside the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is no ordinary collection.

The exhibition is called Giants and the couple behind it are giants in music who are now reshaping the art world, Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz.

WOMAN: Alicia Keys.

(CHEERING) GEOFF BENNETT: She's a 17-time Grammy award winning singer-songwriter and producer.

Since her debut album, "Songs in A Minor," Alicia Keys has sold more than 65 million albums and generated over five billion streams worldwide.

Her Broadway musical "Hell's Kitchen" has earned multiple Tony awards and a Grammy.

And Swizz Beatz, real name Kasseem Dean, is a deejay, entrepreneur and Grammy-winning producer behind some of the biggest songs in hip-hop, R&B and pop, working with artists like DMX, Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Busta Rhymes.

Together, they've built the Dean Collection, now one of the most significant private collections of contemporary art in the world.

They took a private tour of the exhibit, seeing it installed for the first time, around 130 works selected from a collection of more than 1,000.

What first sparked your interest in collecting art?

ALICIA KEYS, Musician and Art Collector: Mmm, you want to take that one?

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN, Music Producer and Art Collector: Well, growing up from the Bronx and seeing art everywhere, waking up, coming from school, going to school, seeing graffiti on the walls, it always felt like something that we live with naturally, just like music, you know?

And I remember wanting to furnish my place at a very young age, and I didn't want posters.

And I started going downtown to look at art.

ALICIA KEYS: He's always really been very passionate about art, about fine art.

He's also an artist.

He also paints.

Our first date was based around the artist Erte.

And so he's always been bringing this into my life, and that was how I started to even understand, wow, we can do this.

We can collect these gorgeous, powerful pieces of artists that we can relate to and that are so unique and masters of their craft.

And that was how we started to put together the Dean Collection.

GEOFF BENNETT: Do you remember the piece or even the feeling that set you on the path to want to build this collection together?

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: I think the first piece was a 30-foot sculpture.

ALICIA KEYS: Yes.

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: She was ready at that time?

ALICIA KEYS: Yes.

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: Like, you know what?

Let's build the Dean Collection.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

Yes.

ALICIA KEYS: Yes, that's right.

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: Yes.

ALICIA KEYS: It would have been that piece... KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: Yes.

ALICIA KEYS: ... which is a huge, huge, huge work.

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: Thirty-foot sculpture, all wood.

ALICIA KEYS: And we got it into our house, and they had to take off the side, the entire side of the house, the bricks and everything.

GEOFF BENNETT: Oh, I thought you meant the side of the piece.

You mean the side of the house.

ALICIA KEYS: The side of the house.

In order to get it into the house, they had to take off the side of the house.

That was what started this idea that we can express in giant ways.

We don't have to have a tiny, small painting.

We can have those, as well as huge pieces like this Amy Sherald.

GEOFF BENNETT: Deliverance.

I mean, this -- and we were talking about this earlier.

The audacity of these pieces, it's phenomenal.

It's phenomenal.

What does this -- what does that mean to you?

What does this Amy Sherald piece Deliverance mean to you, Swizz?

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: It means that she delivered a hell of a work.

(LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: You didn't know this was coming?

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: No, no way.

She didn't even say it was ready.

She said: "You might want to come to my studio."

Canceled everything, went to the studio, go upstairs and turn the corner, and there's these two bikes.

And I almost fainted.

And she said: "Doing this work for the Dean Collection allowed me to have some fun and do something I wouldn't normally do, right, so two guys wheelie on a bike.

And she said, from living in Baltimore, she used to see the Ruff Ryders, which is my family's company, ride bikes all through her block.

And she always wanted to do something to show respect for that.

GEOFF BENNETT: There are paintings, photographs and sculptures throughout the exhibition displayed thematically on the shoulders of giants, giant conversations and giant presents.

ALICIA KEYS: The coolest thing about the Dean Collection is, because we're both artists, there's so much love and understanding that we have about what it takes to make art.

And so what he's describing, this studio visit, is not something that's unfamiliar.

This just happens all the time.

And... KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: Or transactional.

ALICIA KEYS: Yes, it's not - - it's never transactional.

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: No.

ALICIA KEYS: Like, there are real relationships that are created because of the respect between artist to artist.

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: Yes.

ALICIA KEYS: And that is such a beautiful thing.

But it's not until you walk in the space that you can feel what it means and what it feels like, and not only because so many of the works are oversized, but because it's emotional, it's genuine, it's personal, but it's also powerful.

It has all these pieces.

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: It's a family.

GEOFF BENNETT: One member of that family whose work anchors the exhibition is Titus Kaphar, known for reworking art history to center Black subjects long erased from it.

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: We had to fight for 80 percent of these works in the show.

It just... GEOFF BENNETT: You mean fight to acquire them or... KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: Yes.

You would think that, if you can afford something, then it's available.

It doesn't really work like that.

There's waiting list and there's the museums.

There's a whole bunch of different things.

The biggest part was building up our relationship with the artists and even letting the galleries and the museum know that, hey guys, we're not flipping art.

We're a damn near institution ourself.

We're adding to this.

We're not coming to take from it.

GEOFF BENNETT: But why be intentional about making it public?

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: It's the right thing to do.

And I think it would be selfish for us to have all of this beauty sitting in some storage somewhere or hanging only in a home, when you can share it with the world.

I think almost a half-a-million people have seen this show already.

And I know from the people that came to see Giants left feeling like giants.

GEOFF BENNETT: The goal, they say, is to inspire people from all backgrounds, elevate the work of living artists, and advocate behind the scenes to ensure those artists receive a fair share when their work is resold.

The scale of the collection is staggering in size, but also in ambition, monumental pieces that command attention.

The two of you are a major entry point to the world of contemporary art for people who might not otherwise have discovered it.

Is that why you included your piano and your drum machine, your beat machine?

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: There you go.

There you go.

Yes, that was a very important piece, right?

Because when you go into a place like a museum, a lot of people act like they know things, or act like they're smart about art.

And it's OK to be a student, because we're still students.

But having the self-portraits out the gate and make people say, I know them, those are my friends right there, seeing the BMX bikes where I come from, the South Bronx, seeing her piano, seeing the turntables, seeing Kool Herc's actual street sign for hip-hop.

ALICIA KEYS: The BMX bikes are right there, and they're hung so cool, by the way.

But he said, at one time, having a BMX bike was the biggest thing I could have ever done.

GEOFF BENNETT: It was quite the flex.

ALICIA KEYS: It was like a big, big deal.

And when we came in, one of the gentlemen said to us: "Brick by brick."

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: Yes, he did.

I remember he said that walking in.

ALICIA KEYS: That hit me.

KASSEEM "SWIZZ BEATZ" DEAN: I thought it was a song you wrote.

Yes.

ALICIA KEYS: He said: "Brick by brick."

Literally, all of our stories are something that we have cultivated brick by brick, every single one.

And that's all we can do.

And then slowly, but surely, it is possible that it can become this.

GEOFF BENNETT: For Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz, the Dean Collection isn't just about owning art.

It's about expanding who gets seen inside institutions that weren't always accessible, and ensuring the next generation walks in not as outsiders, but as giants.