Alicia Keys was interview by legendary singer Gladys Knight about what she is up to, as far as music and life For Interview magazine. Check out the interview below.

GLADYS KNIGHT: How are you doing?

ALICIA KEYS: I’m good.

GK :: All over the place, huh?

AK: Not so much right now, because I’m working on the next album.

GK :: Are you?

AK: Yeah. It’s going very, very well. I’m just sort of taking it all down a notch, and trying to cut all the extracurricular activities out of there and really focus.

GK :: We used to call that “woodshedding.” People don’t realize how many different directions you can get pulled in just being in this business. When you’re talking about making an album. . . well, that’s a whole other life in itself. So, who are you doing the album with? Are you writing right now?

AK: I write and produce my albums with my partner, Krucial, so together we get the majority of it going. Sometimes I’ll do collaborations with people I admire and things like that. It all just comes together. In fact, I was just talking with my friend about the different lengths of time it takes people to do albums. When you were first starting out, how often-look, I’m about to interview you.

GK :: You just keep talking, girl.

AK: Well, when you first started, how often did you put out albums?

GK :: Not as regularly as you guys.

AK: Really?

GK :: Yeah. See, back in our time, we were brought up to believe that this is what we were going to do for the rest of our lives. It was what was going to feed us, clothe us, and help us send our kids to school. From our mentors, we’d hear, “You don’t want to be just as hot as your last record. You need to build your performance skills so you can work whether you’ve got a record or you don’t.” So we built ourselves up first by performing, and we got to be known that way until we worked up to being headliners. They throw that word out: “tour” well, we’ve been touring all of our lives.

AK: And in a much more serious way.

GK :: I wanted to ask you about the load you take on as a female in the music business. Do you feel like you owe anything to the industry? Or is music just something that you’ve always dreamed of doing, and you’re just trying to accomplish a goal?

AK: Well, I do feel like I owe something, but not to the industry. When you say “industry,” I think of a group of people who don’t really care much about you and treat you as a commodity. [Knight laughs] So, in that regard, I don’t feel like I owe anything. But the people who’ve always been supportive of me and have always seen me for my greatest potential-those are the people who I feel like I owe something to. I feel like I am their voice. I owe it them to represent them in a way that they can be proud of.