100 Proof Brandy : The 16-Year-Old R&B; Sensation Is Burning Up the Charts

“Excuse me for being a zombie,” groans Brandy, the 16-year-old R&B; singing sensation, trying to explain why she is looking so glassy-eyed and worn-down after a rehearsal in a North Hollywood studio.

“I haven’t slept in 24 hours--been cross-country to do a TV show (David Letterman’s) and back in a day or so. I’ve tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. I’m running on nervous energy.”

No one ever said being one of the hottest new stars in the business would be easy.

Brandy, who grew up in Carson and whose last name is Norwood, hasn’t had much time to slow down since last fall when her first single, a sexy, teasing mid-tempo tune titled “I Wanna Be Down,” soared into the national pop Top 10.

Since then, she’s had a second smash single, “Baby”--in that same smoldering groove--from her million-selling debut album, “Brandy,” on Atlantic Records. (The single is No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B; chart and likely to rise from No. 5 on the pop chart.) In addition, she’s been touring with the red-hot Boyz II Men.

Even though she’s on a short break from the tour, Brandy isn’t taking the week off. Typical of her drive, she’s in the studio to work on her performance skills.

“It’d help if I was made out of iron,” she says of her grueling pace, which includes studying with a personal tutor.

As she sits on a couch in a small lounge, a young male fan who was apparently visiting friends in the huge studio complex pops his head through the doorway and gushes, “Brandy, you’re the greatest. I just love your singing. You sing ballads better than any of those other singers out there.”

The fan has a point. Of a promising crop of new teen singers, Brandy arguably has the best voice--especially on ballads.

A real charmer when she wants to be, Brandy suddenly comes alive and starts kidding with the dazzled fan. “I never get too tired to hear that kind of stuff,” she admits, leaning back on the couch after he’s gone. “For me that’s the best tonic around.”

Brandy comes across surprisingly level-headed for someone so young. Just after soaking up all that praise, she cautions about the dangers of taking the adulation too seriously.

“It can be like a drug in some ways--sort of intoxicating,” she says pensively. “I can feed off of that kind of attention and get energy from it--but I can also turn my back on it too.”

But how do you keep that kind of fan worship in perspective?

“The trick is to make sure show biz isn’t your life,” she replies. “It’s sure not my life--but it’s trying to take over now because I have to do so much work with the tour and these hit records.

“But this is just temporary. I make sure I do some normal things--going to the mall, shopping and hanging out with my friends. I’ll fight to keep some kind of normal things in my life. Otherwise you turn into some kind of obnoxious, big-headed monster.

“It also helps to have good, moral people like my parents watching over me. They won’t let me get too far out of line.”

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Adds Atlantic Records senior vice president of black music Richard Nash, in a separate interview: “She’s very mature for her age. She’s capable of strong creative input, which is unusual for someone her age. With all that’s been happening to her, she’s been able to cope with it.”

It also helps that Brandy is somewhat used to the limelight. In 1993, she was a regular on an ABC sitcom called “Thea.” When it flopped, she didn’t shed any tears.

“I signed the record contract three months before I got the show,” she recalls. “The show was in the way for me at the time. Singing came first. I’d be needed in the studio but I’d have to say I couldn’t go because I was taping the show.”

Brandy has been dedicated to singing ever since she was 4, about the time her family migrated to Carson from McCoomb, Miss. “I grew up singing in church,” she says, explaining the gospel overtones in her style. “I learned how to express myself through song.”

While her parents were a major factor in that decision (her choir-director father is her vocal coach and her mother is her manager), they weren’t the only influence.

“It was Whitney Houston that really made me want to be a singer,” she says, her eyes lighting up as she talks about her idol. “I just loved watching her when I was young. I wanted to be just like her.”

Even before she was a teen, honing her skills at Hollywood High’s performing arts school, Brandy aggressively went after a singing career, entering talent shows and singing background vocals for the R&B; group Immature when she was just 11.

Some record companies, though, weren’t convinced. “I couldn’t get a deal for two years,” she recalls, obviously still somewhat miffed. “They said I’d be a flash-in-the-pan. I was real down on myself--and I was just 11 or 12. But Atlantic finally signed me. I thought to myself: I’ll show all those people who didn’t have any faith in me. Now those people are acting like they knew I’d make it. I just laugh at them.”