Nonchalant, Yes, but Not Casual : The rapper is calling her second album ‘For All Non-Believers.’

The search in the record industry is already well underway for the next Lauryn Hill, the hip-hop and pop story of the year in 1998.

Hill, whose “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” album contributed to her receiving 10 Grammy nominations earlier this month, is the first female artist to reach such lofty commercial and critical status in the male-dominated hip-hop arena.

One reason for her groundbreaking success is that her music is far more accessible to mainstream pop audiences and critics than the average hip-hop record.

Hill, 23, sings rather than just raps on the record, and her musical textures are often closer to the graceful, melodic style of Stevie Wonder than the raw, assaulting tone of hard-core rap.

And Hill’s lyrics are more acceptable to a general pop audience because they avoid the profanity and violence endemic to so much hip-hop. She doesn’t write about selling drugs and carefree sex, but instead employs themes that revolve around such traditional issues as romantic tensions, her love for her son and social commentary.

So where are record labels going to find another Hill?

One may already exist.

Nonchalant.

The 25-year-old rapper from Washington already has a bit of a reputation within the hip-hop community, thanks to “5 O’Clock,” a single that went gold in 1996.

Rather than rap about sexual escapades in the single and in the subsequent “Until the Day” album, Nonchalant (real name: Tonya Pointer) called for an end to black-on-black crime and urged536870913an increased social awareness throughout the black community. Instead of posing provocatively on her album cover, Nonchalant selected a demure photo.

Despite the single’s success, the album itself was largely overlooked by rap consumers, partially because the hip-hop audience seemed captivated at the time by the explicit tales of such raunchy female rappers as Lil’ Kim and Foxy Brown.

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Nonchalant may find the hip-hop climate more conducive this time around. The rapper’s second album, “For All Non-Believers,” won’t be released by MCA Records until June, but a single from536870913it, “Take It There,” has been in the Billboard magazine Top 20 rap charts since its release in early December.

The single steps back somewhat from the politically conscious nature of “5 O’Clock,” focusing instead on a familiar theme: praising one’s own rap skills.

But Nonchalant hasn’t abandoned her social agenda. She sings only a little on the album--one difference from Hill--but she raps with confidence and clarity about backstabbing friends, racism, lost love, hometown pride and her rapping ability. The music, too, has lots of melodic elements that could catch pop ears without sacrificing hip-hop credibility.

Unlike many female rappers whose lyrics are primarily written by men and who attempt to sound and look like their male mentors, Nonchalant writes most of her own rhymes and sounds as if she’s comfortable being herself, a multidimensional woman, on her recordings. It’s a trait she believes Hill has mastered.

“Lauryn’s voice is deep and it has masculine overtones in the sense that it is deep, but you’ll never mistake her femininity,” says Nonchalant. “She’s very strong and she doesn’t compromise any of her feminine sides.

“That’s one of the things I wanted to get across on this record,” she says. “I’m not overdoing it, but I am definitely showing that I’m not some girl dressed up as a boy. I’m a woman and I’m going to give you the strengths of a woman and also the ‘feminine’ side of a woman at the same time.”

On the new album’s “People Time,” for example, Nonchalant takes turns with rap icon KRS-One thanking those who have stopped using drugs and relinquished their firearms. It’s as strong and forceful a message as any a female rapper has produced. Conversely, on “My Angel Sherry,” Nonchalant delivers a heart-wrenching outpouring to her deceased sister.

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It took Nonchalant a while to establish her own identity.

When she first was trying to get a record deal, she and a friend used Mary J. Blige’s look and R&B; sound as models. But no one seemed interested in what they were doing, so Nonchalant reasoned that if she couldn’t get a contract being someone else, she would try getting one being herself.

This time, executives were interested.

Like her forthcoming album, “Until the Day” was written almost entirely by Nonchalant--a rarity for a female rapper.

“People gave me a lot of credit on the first album once they found out that I wrote 90% of the album,” she says. “It wasn’t something they were looking for coming from a female artist.”

Since she is known for politically charged content, Nonchalant hopes that the record-buying public won’t be alienated by the lighter lyrical slant of the new single.

“People have only heard one part of me,” she says. “I’m walking a line of trying to expose them to other sides of myself. Until you have more women like Queen Latifah having their own record companies and making all the decisions, I don’t think that it’s really going to change.

“On this album, I’m going to be showing a little bit more feminine side, but at the same time I’m still going to be giving you something to think about,” Nonchalant says. “As long as I give you something that you can hold on to, I think I’ll be accepted.”