Alicia Keys' new album is about overcoming depression.

The 'Girlfriend' singer almost quit the music industry when her grandmother passed away in 2006 but has learned to channel her emotions use them to create a "new sound" for her latest LP 'The Element of Freedom'.

She explained: "I found more freedom. Before, I thought I could only show the strong side of me. Now there's a mixture of strong and delicate. A new sound, a new emotion. That's a lot of who I am right now.

"In the past, I was locking myself in the studio because I thought it was the only way to create music. This was a more casual way to do it.

"The tour will take me all over the world for a year and I can't wait to play these songs."

In 2006, the 28-year-old songstress almost suffered a breakdown after her grandmother passed away. She took a three-week holiday in Egypt to grieve for her loss before she released 'As I Am' a year later.

She explained to Britain's Daily Star newspaper: "With the last album, I was really trying to find myself and I was feeling extremely overworked. I was also starting to understand that I was dealing with certain people in business that were not really for me and they all had their intentions and thoughts. I was snappy, I was nasty, I was mean, losing my grandmother during that time as well. Everything felt like it could all just tumble down at once."