Singer/songwriter Alicia Keys combines versatility, philanthropy and a sense of privacy

ALICIA KEYS is one of contemporary music's most visible and versatile performers, with an appeal far broader than most of her twenty-something peers.

You know her best as a neo-soul-flavored singer/songwriter and classically trained pianist. Yet Keys (born Alicia Augello-Cook) can also tangle with hip-hop producers and artists - or with the ghost of Frank Sinatra, as the talent did during the opening of this year's Grammy Awards telecast.

Truth is, this modern young "Superwoman" is an A-lister and must-have on virtually every big, music-oriented TV special, except maybe the Country Music Awards.

She's also created a buzz and increased visibility with well-reviewed acting turns in films like "Smokin' Aces" and "The Nanny Diaries." And the grad of New York's Professional Performing Arts School is very high on her upcoming role in "The Secret Life of Bees," which Keys describes as "one of the most beautiful films I've ever been involved with."

Oh, and in what passes as spare time, Keys gives tirelessly to philanthropic work, with a special focus on the plight of HIV/AIDS-affected children in Africa.

Yet the artist laughed agreeably when I recently suggested she's still hard to pin down, something of an "enigma."

"Hmmm, I really like that word," she replied, obliquely.

Since her 2001 debut, at age 19, with "Songs in A Minor" - an album that sold like crazy and won her a truckload of Grammys, Billboard Music Awards, American Music Awards and NAACP Image Awards - Keys' communiques with the media have been few and far between.

Publicists repeatedly dodged my request to interview her when the singer was coming through town. And even with the big gossip rags she couldn't snub, like People and US, some topics have always been off the table. (Please to note that Alicia Keys' Wikipedia biography goes on for 11 pages, yet the section on her personal life is all of two sentences!)

But seven years, four No. 1 studio albums (in a row) and maybe 30 million worldwide disc sales later, I finally got on the line recently with Alicia Keys.

Could it be because Keys' newest album and tour (bringing her to the Liacouris Center on Monday, then the Trump Taj Mahal on May 31) carry the come-clean title "As I Am"?

For sure, it's her most personally telling and musically mature work, showing her Harlem street-funk roots in "Go Ahead" and reaching a rapturous romantic peak in "Like You'll Never See Me Again."

Keys is also flexing muscles in the anthemic "Superwoman," cutting new stylistic ground in her sweeping pop crossover collaboration with John Mayer, "Lesson Learned," and truly pouring out her heart about a lost loved one in "Tell You Something (Nana's Reprise)."

And yes, a confident and easygoing Keys now seems willing, maybe even eager to share some more of herself in conversation, too. But be forewarned, the woman still dodges some curve balls.

Hey, whatever. I was just glad to finally hear her speaking voice.

Q: You've described the new album as a "cross between Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin." How so?

A: What I was talking about was the intention, the feeling of the music. You listen to a Joplin album, she wears everything on her sleeve. She's singing with no cares, no second thoughts, no looking back, with every bone in her body and that was that.

When you think of Aretha, you think of a woman who opens her mouth and, in one second, the power and the passion comes up. So I wanted to mesh the intention of that passion, abandonment, that freedom and rawness, to just let it be. And for the first time, I was able to have that abandonment when I was working.

Prior to this album, I felt I had a lot to prove as a woman, as a writer and producer. I had to prove this was my work. So when I started to create, I sat in my room for 10 hours a day; I always had the firm idea of what I wanted.

This time, there were situations where I went into a recording session, we had great musicians in there, maybe a couple writers and we'd do, whatever . . . I set myself free, unlocked the chains. I didn't feel like I had anything to prove. Now I know what I can do. This was a growing process.

Q: We know of your social activism as a global ambassador and co-founder of Keep a Child Alive. So are you now willing to come clean about your political views? I've seen that your song, "No One" is now scoring a Barack Obama film on YouTube. Also, on the personal side, who is "Tell You Something" addressing? And what can you tell us about your romantic life, which has also been something of a state secret and source of idle speculation?

A: The more I read about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party, the more it interests me. The more I see how young they were, so driven and focused on making change. They weren't 60-year-olds. They were people in their 20s and 30s . . . I didn't endorse the use of that song on YouTube, and, in fact, there's a Hillary [Clinton] video up there that uses another of my songs.

But I've got to tell you, I'm extremely moved by Obama. I'm very inspired by his approach, by the way he's affecting and moving everyone, no matter their race, creed or color. That's what it should be all about. So I'm really excited about this time in politics. It's the most important period I've lived through.

As to sharing things about my private life, I'd rather not go into details. The subject of "Tell You Something" was someone close to me, who helped raise me, a very strong, beautiful person. This past year, though I did lose her, the time I spent with her was so much more fulfilling and greater than it had ever been before.

What provoked me to write that song was to tell the person, show the person how much I loved her. We fill up churches and gravesites with flowers. Why not fill a room up with flowers when you can still see it?

As to my romantic life, I don't think anybody needs or deserves to know about that except the people I love. One of the best things Oprah's said to me was, if she could, she'd take it back. Once stuff's out there, it becomes messy. And if people want to speculate, that's OK.

Q: Speaking of Oprah, reports have surfaced that she's picked you to play the lead in the Lena Horne biopic she's producing. And the choice has evidently been approved by Ms. Horne [who rejected the previously anointed Janet Jackson after her Super Bowl costume "malfunction"]. Can you talk about any of this?

A: This particular thing is so confusing to me. It's not supposed to be officially confirmed, but things have been confirmed by other people. So I'll answer by saying it would be one of my dream projects. In many ways, I was born to play Lena Horne.

I'd be honored to portray her life - a complex, historic, legendary life - such a wonderful story to learn about. You realize how far we've come and how far we haven't come.

Q: You come from a racially mixed background. How has that affected who you are, how you think?

A: A lot of people believe I'm part Jamaican, though I'm not. I'm definitely black [her father] and Italian and a little Irish or Scottish [her mom]. Being of mixed background influences everything in my life and music. I've always been able to relate to a variety of different places and styles. It opened me up to not be judgmental, from the classical music I studied to Tupac [Shakur] and Biggie [Smalls] to Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.

Q: Can you talk a bit about your new concert show, and how the package came together with Ne-Yo and Jordin Sparks? I guess you weren't concerned about Ne-Yo's boast that he'd been kicked off the Jay-Z tour because he was more popular than the headliner!

A: This tour is totally different from any I've ever done before. I love that about it. I never want to do just the same thing, what's comfortable. I know how to do a lot of things, how to do my standard-style show. I want this to be unique and different, to show my versatility and be almost like a story.

It's like a journey, from the beginning of my life to where we are now. It's very communicative - through the music, through talking. It brings people into my world and they really love it . . . We're definitely doing favorites from the last albums, and certain songs people always ask me to play, like "Butterfly," that I usually don't do, but this time I'm playing.

When it comes to putting together a tour, when you have other people on the tour with you, it's interesting how it comes together. You're reaching out to people, or people are reaching out to you. Sometimes it comes down to who's got a record out. If a person doesn't, they shouldn't be on tour.

Ne-Yo is a great guy, a great songwriter, somebody I think will be around for a while. People who come to see me will enjoy him, and people who enjoy him will definitely enjoy me.

And Jordin is such a sweetheart. She had "American Idol," but really, she's just starting out. People gave me a shout out when I was starting, so now I'm doing it for her. *

Alicia Keys, with Ne-Yo and Jordin Sparks, 7:30 p.m. Monday, Liacouras Center, 1776 N. Broad St., $49-$126, 215-204-8499, www.comcasttix.com., 8 p.m. May 31, Mark Etess Arena, Trump Taj Mahal, Atlantic City, $75.50-$150.50, 800-736-1420, www.ticketmaster.com.