Alicia Keys Talks About Her Upcoming Album The Element of Freedom & Much More!

R & B superstar Alicia Keys is recording her fourth album, The Element of Freedom in an unlikely place: A three-story house-turned-studio on a quiet residential street on Long Island. It's called the Oven. Keys renovated it in 2OO6, and she does everything here, from writing to mastering.

This is my safe haven," she says, curled into a chair in the control room. "When I used to go to the Hit Factory, I couldn't write. Platinum records on the wall? I felt so intimidated." At the Oven, the lights are dimmed, incense burns in every room and the walls are lined with pictures of her heroes: Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Muhammad Ali. "I feel like I'm coming into my grandmother's house, not to work," she says.

The writing process for the new record has been smooth. "It was breezy - it wrote itself," she says. "I thought I wouldn't be done until March."

Which is not to say Freedom is drama-free: The hard- knocking "Love Is Blind" - coproduced by Jeff Bhasker, who worked on Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak - has Keys sounding angrier and grittier than ever before, as she sings about being over the edge, no turning back." Says Keys of the tunes.

Overall I think there's a real balance I found between the heaviness of the drums and the vulnerability in the vocals - it's an ill merging." Meanwhile, the piano ballad 'Pray for Forgiveness" and the lost-love first sing lee, Doesn't Mean Anything," arc Keys at her most tender.

Those last two songs were co-produced by Kerry Krucial Brothers, Keys' longtime songwriting partner, who was reportedly her romantic partner as well - although earlier this year, Keys was rumored to be dating producer Swizz Beatz. Krucia1 and I have a very strong partnership, and that hasn't changed." Keys says. (As for the Swizz rumors: You know I don't talk about my personal life.")

Between finishing the CD and plotting a tour for 2010, Keys is quietly becoming a multimedia mogul, developing a pilot for NBC, producing a film about a female DJ and launching a new lifestyle website. She seems very much a woman in transition. "[Life] changes aren't always comfortable," she says. But it's like turning into a butterfly: You've got to break out of the cocoon. I'm definitely at least halfway out of the Cocoon.