Jennifer Lopez has been very much in the news because of her divorce from Marc Anthony, also a top singer, a top player in Latin music, her joining the cast of judges on "American Idol." But the music has not been at the forefront.

You get to a point in life where it suddenly occurs to you that you don't need all the things you once thought you did--that it's really, well, convoluted. My life feels overblown sometimes, and I don't want it to be. I want it to be streamlined. So I'm living a much more unscripted life now than I have in a long time.

I grew up in the Bronx where you would stay up late with your girlfriends, just being silly in our bedrooms, whatever. And I was always the clown.

With hard work, living a good life, you can do anything. You will be rewarded for that.

Puffy produced four of the tracks on the album. Those are the four songs that are collaborations between Puffy and me. And he gives me my space to work even when we work together, like with my producer and my vocal coach.

I'm also influenced by all the places I've traveled since then: I've been to Hollywood and great fashion shows and seen the world. I have a different perspective, and I mix that up.

If you don't love yourself, you can't love anybody else. And I think as women we really forget that.