Alicia Keys has learned the importance of standing up for herself.She jokingly calls herself “Little Miss Transition,” but the process of escaping crushing demands and expectations was serious business.

In fact, it was serious enough to stretch the gap between her last album and the new “As I Am” to four years and deep enough to make it the most edgy and urgent work of her seven-year career.

Here, in her own words, she talks about growing up, taking charge and letting go.

•“I think it’s important to have something to say, something to stand for.”

•“There’s a point where you’re a girl, and then you’re a woman. So what are you going to do? Are you going to constantly be the girl that kind of follows and does all of this, or are you going to be the woman that states what you want for yourself?”

•“I kind of came face to face with having to identify what kind of woman I wanted to be.”

•“I’ve seen a massive amount of my friends fall victim to all kinds of situations, and I’ve been right there with them in so many ways doing the same things that they did, so why not me?”

•“I did go through a time where I was very uncertain and insecure, because everything around me was falling apart. I was a wreck and I couldn’t really hold on to anything, so nothing really made sense.”

•“So when I then tried to create music, it was confusing and it was disjointed. It didn’t come together. I had these ideas, but they didn’t work. I was very frustrated about that because I felt like that’s my one sanctuary.”

•“For a minute there, I was doing things that were not humanly possible, and it was just a miserable way to be. Never saying no, always doing everything, accepting everything. Every inch of space was taken up with something to do and somewhere to be and someone to call and someone to talk to and someone to meet, and it’s too much.”

•“I came to a point last year where I was just sick of being that. So I became very rebellious about people telling me what they thought I should do and what they felt was good for me.”

•“People look at a young lady who’s a musician and a writer and they automatically think, ‘Ah, she’s probably OK, she can’t really be a producer, you can’t be serious, I’m sure there’s someone else that’s really doing it, she can’t really have written all that.’ ”

•“I think I spent a lot of my first two albums feeling like I had to prove that I could do all of this. So I was very controlling. I would come into a session with everything mapped out, and I think that restricted me in a lot of ways.”

•“There’s a certain magic that happens when you just let it go, and this time, because of being able to let go of a lot of things that were holding me back and coming to a more secure place in myself, I went into sessions this time and I was just like … ‘Let’s see what happens.’ ”

•“I would really like to put out another album relatively soon. Something that’s a bit more stripped back … I already have about six or seven records for it that I love.”

•“I just want to keep creating.”

•“Life has not been charmed for me, that’s for sure. But God does carry me.”