Few celebrity endorsements lingered, such as Bob Dylan’s of Alicia Keys. “Nothing about the girl  I do not like,” he told Rolling Stone in 2006, when asked why he said about it on the Thunder Mountain, the opening song of his album Modern Times.

You can see where it was coming from these lyrics unthinkable. A talented singer, songwriter and pianist with 12 Grammys, three albums lyrical soul and R’n'B under her belt, and fourthly, the element of freedom, on the road. An Ivy League mind of lighting beauty.  Committed philanthropist through her sponsorship of the AIDS charity Keep Child Alive.  Still only 28, Keys certainly tick boxes.

But while Dylan did not find fault her, others pointed out, emotional guardedness and obsessive work ethic that left room for little else. Her music, mainly the sale of eight million second album, The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003), like anti-confessional, but rarely has a long way off, that seemed genuinely private.

There were signs of thaw around the release of her latest album, As I Am (2007), in which the Keys, born Alicia Augello Cook, opened on the death of her grandmother. However, even though, lingered an impression that was only part of closely monitored baring my soul. Maybe Dylan original lyric, which is based on Key’s upbringing – just her and her mother in Manhattan’s Kitchen Hell’s – it was more saying, “I was thinking about Alicia Keys / I can not help from crying.”

With her hair scraped back comb and her feline features flawless powder and glossed and her curves encased in leather tunic, Keys looks like some kind of medieval witch: purringly charming, but ready to fling hex anyone who steps from the line.

Her mood is friendly, and flirtatious in the way measured: eye contact, sometimes touch hands. And she does not favor that asks, in her soft, audible voice, your questions, inquire about the importance of anglicisms as “Noughties” and “magpie instinct” intellectual curiosity safe, unlike the vapid celeb gormlessness.

Some have blamed Keys on remote and workaholism its management. She would not go that far, even while admitting that “everyone has their motives and can not forget that.

“There are very few people in my life that have motives,” he says. “That does not mean that I love, but you should be aware of what their motives may be, and I think, ‘What do you feel?” “The problem is the expectation of sex, she thinks. One of its website is named after one of his songs, iamasuperwoman.com Keys and hit the last-day Shirley Conran when she talks about how “we get to these traditions – maybe not you, but women – with all things to all others. Because we are so beautiful and it’s in our nature, and we have a female life is what you do in the way. But we should also honor him, I learned to do on the last album. ”

That he persuaded to change their working style to an element of freedom. “I said: ‘We’re doing this record as the others. I will lock myself in the studio.” I tend to think the only way to get things together, buckle down. People say,’ I am having dinner. ” I say: ‘I can not, I’m in the studio. ” I do not know how I did it, I want to go and have a great weekend with friends, maybe a little trip. Or go to the party at night and come back the next day. The little life, maybe? ”

This sense of new-found leisure pervades the record, which opens the line: “And the day came when the risk that remains tightly closed in a bud was more painful that the risk is that the blossom.” Element of Freedom employs a broader sonic palette than its previous records, with Eighties-style synths and high-end production: Keys said she listened to a lot of Genesis, Tears for Fears, Fleetwood Mac and the police. Sounds like a woman talking.

If you suspect that when he leaves, she is rather good fun. Certainly as a rebellious teenager in New York. “One of my oldest friends, my daughter and we talk about it all the time. She says: ‘If my daughter is doing what we did!” “It is feared that she was seen in the past too seriously? “I am a bit serious, but I’m not at the same time. People who know me would probably not call me seriously, they call me driven. I am very silly, very funny kind of guy but when I did my thing I do , are you serious. Sometimes my friends say, ‘Alicia, relax. ” ”

Only when she began playing in movies (gangster comedy Smokin Aces’ Sixties-set drama The Secret Life of Bees, with more to come) found that on weekends, is anchored in the film world, the EU regulations. Decided that it would “carry on the weekends” since then, which affects the observation, if not the use of the word “make”. It is clearly trying, but the work-life, what still needs some work.

There is a knock on the door and our conversation is suspended Keys led them into the studio, sitting at the piano for Empire State radiant issue of Mind, stunning Valentine to New York, which she recorded with her friend Jay-Z (left, with Keys) and reworked the new album.

After the TV interviewers ask it to extend its list of collaborators: Jack White, with whom she performed the latest Bond song Another Way to Die, Whitney Houston, whose last hit Million Dollar Bill she co-wrote and Jay-Z’s wife Beyonce, with whom she duets on new album. In the future, Keys said the interviewer would like to work with Sade, Kings of Leon, MIA “Working with people is definitely something I want to do more,” he says, and the same goes for her film work. “I love a lot. It takes me out of my element in the other world.” Television for duties, she invites me with manicured index finger.

Back in the locker room, he perches on the back of the sofa this time, he looked imperiously. The new emphasis on outward-looking projects – cooperation, movies – is interesting. He has his inner world become too stifling? Several songs from the album refers to her folly, or a different perception of ‘it. Does not worry about it? “Hmmm.” Looks quite reasonable today. “It seems pretty normal, right? That’s good,” she muses, picked grapes from the table before her and looked at it. “Finding freedom is released, what people think,” he said, popping grapes into his mouth.

There were times when came the steel control? “None of us ever really under control,” she smiles. “But we will try to look like us.” Any specific times? “About As I Amalbum,” she said, when her grandmother died, and strains the workload will take its toll. “I did not know what was what everything was turned back and forth.” She clearly enjoyed what he called the reduction “steel wall”, but never for long. “There’s a certain amount of survival with steel walls.” If a constant theme in music, Keys is love, but she has always been tight-lip about her love life. For years it was assumed that he was involved with his production partner Kerry “crucial” Brothers. Some said he was gay. Newer, unsubstantiated reports claimed that it was an affair with another married colleague, DJ Swizz Beatz. But from the Keys, nothing.

How important is music for her to be in love? “Love is the most important thing in the world. I’m definitely in love with life, and I, and music.” You know what I mean, I say. “I have a lot of love in my life and I love him a lot,” he continues. What about friends? “Oh, I do not want to talk about a friend.” Will be happy even when talking about families, present and future.

There is an Irish-Italian mother who inherited from her drive: “You do it from your mother!” Part-time actress, Teresa Augello helped to secure her daughter on the spot performing on The Cosby Show at age 4 with her playing the piano at 7 and wrote it at the Professional Performing Arts School in the 12th Eight years later, after she dropped out of Columbia, her debut album Songs in A Minor, debuted at No. 1