After a previewing a few of her latest offerings for the Saci crowd, Faith digs into her catalog. The whole crowd knows every word.

"Can I take y'all back?" she asks. Like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, she implores, "Can I get somebody to say yeeaah?" After "Emotional" and "I'll Never Let You Go," she comes back to the present with a grand finale of "You Gets No Love." "Cop my sh--," she says while performing the tune.

A little over a month after the party, Faith is right back at the R&B forefront. Her album debuted in the top 10 and has been universally accepted by critics, fans and her peers.

"I think there's a certain amount of nervousness [about coming back]," says Faith, whose previous album, Keep the Faith, was released in 1998. "By the time we were finished with this album, I wasn't nervous anymore. I totally love it. And I never felt this way about any of my records. I think this one has more flavors. The first album had flavor, but I don't know, I like this one better."

R&B crooner Joe, who hopes to tour with Faith, says Faithfully is "on fire." "I'm very proud of her," he adds.

"Faith is fun, man, and Faith is receptive," says Neptune member Pharrell Williams, who worked with Faith on Faithfully's "Burnin' Up." "It's different, but it's retro, because if you go back and listen to a lot of Aretha [Franklin] records and a lot of Marvin Gaye records, he had a lot of talk tracks in there. With Faith, we wanted to bring that retro talk back."

A kaleidoscope of old music, ranging from Ella Fitzgerald to the S.O.S. Band to Betty Carter, served as inspiration for Faith while she was making the album.

"From all the different people I listened to, I have to say that I got something different," she explains. "I didn't know if it would be vocals, 'cause I like my vocals. I like my voice. I want to be able to do different things with my writing and my arrangements."

Faith did switch up her vocals for Faithfully's second single, the whispery ballad "I Love You."

"It was more of a challenge to record that song, believe it or not," she admits. "It didn't come easy to just totally change my voice from so soulful to making it sound so simple and light and pretty. Normally I can achieve those sounds, but it's not for a whole song. I had to really practice over and over, 'cause the song has to reflect the mood and the feeling." [RealAudio]

Faith hopes to uplift listeners with "Do Your Time," on which she sings from the perspective of a woman who stands by her incarcerated lover.

"Most of my songs have been about love, some part of love, whether it's good or bad," she says. "Some people love somebody so unconditionally that they would do that. I haven't personally experienced that, and I can't say that I don't love my husband enough that if it happened to him, I would definitely be down with him."

In real life she's down with one of her inspirations, Stevie Wonder. She's penning a duet for them both which she hopes to record and release sometime soon. Ice Cube has contacted her to appear in one of his upcoming films, and Hollywood has also hollered at her to play Billie Holiday in another.

"I'm looking to delve into every area that I can," Faith says. "Something that's gonna help me to be here longer, as far as my artistry is concerned. I want to take advantage of everything I can."