India.Arie made her debut in 2001 with Acoustic Soul, a CD brimming with messages about inner beauty and positivity. She was seen as a self-assured musician impervious to the superficial pitfalls of celebrity.

Not really. The 33-year-old singer, who was born in Denver and lives in Atlanta, says people misinterpreted her image and she struggled with insecurities. She's taking a new approach with her fourth album, Testimony, Vol. 2: Love & Politics, released this week.

The Grammy-winner told Mesfin Fekadu of the Associated Press that she hopes to expand outside the R&B/soul genre to a more world-music sound.

It's been three years since your last release. How'd you prepare yourself for a new album?

It's funny because you know how everybody watches TV, everybody reads magazines, all of us, and you constantly (see) there's (one) or two or three female artists who talk about "I had another break- down, I had to take a little break. I was working so hard I almost had another breakdown."

It's really a common experience as a woman in the music industry because we're wired to be emotional, so if you have these things that are kind of like assaulting emotionally over a long period of time, your emotional body gets kind of worn out, you get tired. It's not a tired that sleep fixes; it's tired that you have to go home and fix. That's where I was.

Describe your new CD.

I always considered myself a world-music artist. With the production of this album, I made a world-music album, all kinds of sounds, all kinds of guest appearances, all kinds of different people from different cultures. It really is my interpretation of world music.

And also lyrically, just talking about more than just my world, my internal world, which is what I normally like to talk about . . . (and) addressing my opinion about what's going on in the world.

What sparked this kind of sound and approach?

I'm expanding as a person. Just like in my everyday, personal life growing up, one of my biggest lessons of the past 10 years has been learning how to speak my mind, speak up, have hard conversations with people, say things I want to say . . . Be myself, even though I know some people around me might not like it. Really, the last three years that lesson was superintensified.

How do you feel compared with the early days of your career?

I think when I first came out the image that people had of me was that I was a person comfortable in my skin, particularly because (of) the song Video. But one thing that people didn't understand about the song Video or about me as an artist was that my songs for the most part are affirmations. So I'm writing these songs about who I want to be, how I want to see the world and what I want to see humanity be. That's why a lot of people say it's too positive, because I'm not talking about what's really going on in the world. But I'm not CNN - I'm a songwriter.

More:

* indiaarie.com