Is she basking in the glow of her recently acquired street credibility (genius producer Timbaland's backbeat to "One In a Million" was the first commercial success of the drum n bass sound in America). Or is she simply savoring the freedom of finally graduating Detroit's Performing Arts High School(as a dance major).

As the late afternoon sunlight settles into the warm pools of her eyes, setting the pupils afire, Aaliyah sighs deeply and says "Damn, this grass is c-c-cold."

Isn't it always like that. Things are never as comfortable as they seem in this business. Aaliyah has learnt, through a baptism of fire that celebrity and its constant attention is not all that it was rumored to be. In fact the grass on the other side, she has seen for herself, is not as green or warm or inviting, as myth would have it.

As she dutifully lies back on the green lawn and glances up at Jayson Keeling's lens' the mixture of girl child clashing with business woman leaks from her gaze. As a fourteen year old, she was thrown into the raging vortex of publicity with the release of her debut CD "Age Ain't Nothing But A Number", "I still remember how nervous I was right before "Back & Forth" came out ," recalls Aaliyah, "It was my first single, and I kept wondering if people would accept it. When it went gold , I had my answer, and it was just such an incredibly satisfying feeling."