Quiet storm soul songstress legend Sade is recording her first album of new material in more than nine years, Billboard.com sources have confirmed.

“She is in the studio and the album will come when it is ready,” a source at Sony Records told Billboard this week. “You don’t wait for years for one and then rush it.”

Sade’s longtime bandmate Stuart Matthewman, a.k.a. Cottonbelly, also confirmed that a new project is in its “early days” but cautioned that the LP won’t be complete until “later in the year.”

Sony has not yet set a release date but hopes to put the record out by the end of 2009.

Sade arrived on the music scene with the release of her 1985 LP Diamond Life, which featured the classic slow jam “Smooth Operator,” “Cherish The Day,” and “Your Love Is King.” Her 2000 album Lovers Rock, sold 3.9 million copies in the U.S.