Mariah Carey is all about starting a new path, following her new residency in Las Vegas gearing her up for an upcoming album.

“I’ve been working on my new album for a while. This is a labor of love and I’m really excited,” she told People magazine. “This is me at this moment in my life being able to express myself as a writer and a singer. I’m just really in a good place.”

The star extended her “The Butterfly Returns” residency at Caesars Palace into 2019. She added, “My fans just want to hear me express myself and speak from the heart and sing from the heart. Some of the record is lighthearted and fun, and some [songs] I really went deep in terms of the lyrical content. There’s a nice cross-section of things.”

“I’ve been loving it so much,” she says about her show. “A lot of the fans who have come out to see it were really happy having a little more diversity. I want to make it really impromptu and surprise the people who have come out again and again to see the show.”

“Every time I get a minute off, we go somewhere and try to do something fun,” she says. “We’re New Yorkers, but I’ve been living out in L.A. with the kids for a while so they can go outside and play in the yard and go in the pool.”