The Voice of 'Emotions'

NEW YORK -- On MAKE IT HAPPEN, the most autobiographical song on her new 
album, Mariah Carey sings: NOT MORE THAN THREE SHORT YEARS AGO/ I WAS 
ABANDONED AND ALONE
	WITHOUT A PENNY TO MY NAME/ SO VERY YOUNG AND SO AFRAID
	At 21, Carey is still very young, but she's no longer going 
hungry, crying herself to sleep or desperately knocking on record company 
doors. 
	The vocal powerhouse who soared from obscurity to superstardom in 
a matter of months is a Grammy-winning pop-gospel diva whose phenomenal 
1990 debut album out-sold Whitney Houston's latest by almost 2 million 
copies. With today's release of her second album, EMOTIONS, Carey hopes 
to prove her Cinderella rise was no fluke. Early evidence supports her. 
Th title tack is riding up the top 20 of BILLBOARD'S pop, R&B and adult 
contemporary charts.
	"There's more ME on this album," Carey says. "I let myself go a 
lot more. I tried to sing from deep inside myself."
	Producer Walter Afanasieff agrees. "Her heart and soul is all 
over this record." He produced the debut's LOVE TAKES TIME and 
co-produced EMOTIONS' six ballads. C+C Music Factory duo David Cole and 
Robert Clivilles co-produced four upbeat tunes. But Carey's imprint -- as 
singer, composer and producer -- is in ever throbbing groove.
	"New pop singers are going to emulate Mariah," Afanasieff 
predicts. "She has a very focused sense of what she whats to express 
musically, and few artists have that at such a young age. She's developed 
a wisdom and professionalism that goes beyond her 21 years. That's partly 
because she was in the studio at 14, when other girls were hanging out 
at the mall."
	Hanging out at Right Track Recording, Carey hardly projects the 
serious, seasoned and sophisticated persona implicit in EMOTIONS' adult 
themes. She's the picture of girlishness in a white T-shirt, knee-length 
cutoffs and dainty gold jewelry. Her long wavy hair is gathered in a 
ponytail under a red cap. Sipping a chocolate milkshake, she doodles 
snowmen on a pad.
	Her impassioned tales of rapture and heartbreak, pulsating from 
the speakers, shatter the teeny-bopper impression.
	"I was a miniature grown-up by the age of 6," she says. "I've been 
around adults my whole life. And I was alone a lot, so I had time to 
think. I learned to be independent."
	Carey began singing at 4 with encoragement from her mother, vocal 
coach and former New York City Opera singer Patricia Carey. "But she's 
never been a pushy mom," Carey stresses. "She never said, 'Give it more 
of and operatic feel.' I respect opera like crazy but it didn't influence 
me."		
	Instead, she studied gospel and R&B greats, especially Minnie 
Riperton, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder. Those traditions, coupled 
with the soulful wallop of her voice, brought Carey crossover success. 
She scaled black and pop charts and collected two Grammys and three Soul 
Train awards, triumphs that led to persistent conjecture about her racial 
makeup. It's a subject that still irks her.
	"Why is race such an issue?" she complains. "Am I black, am I 
white? I'm ME. Yes, I'm black. I'm also white.
	She seethed when some speculated that she was concealing her 
black identity. "Nobody asked me in the beginning," she says. "I couldn't 
just blurt out, 'By the way, my mom's 100% Irish and my dad's black and 
Venezuelan.' I think some people would like me to say, 'I'm black and 
that's it.'
	"It would have been false for me to talk about my father just to 
get acceptance from a black audience. My parents divorced when I was 3, 
and I saw my father sporadically. He's a good person, but we don't know 
each other very well. My mother has been the mainstay in my life."
	The flap was negligible considering the overwhelmingly favorable 
reaction to her first album, which sold moe that 5 million copies and 
yielded four consecutive No.1 singles. Those achievements gave her the 
clout to steer the second album toward looser, vocally explosive pop 
steeped in gospel.
	"I didn't want it to be somebody else's vision of me," says 
Carey, who agreed with critics that the debut was too slick. "But hey, 
gimme a break. Let me get going. I'm still learning.
	"When you're a brand new artist and a young girl and you walk 
into a situation with fabulous established producers, it's intimidating. I 
thought, 'Maybe they're right. They're big and famous and I'm just a new 
up-and-coming hopeful.' That was difficult for me, but it was a necessary 
evil, part of the growth process. This time, I really collaborated on 
every level." 
	She was thrilled when her idol Carole King suggested they work 
together. King had urged Carey to record A NATURAL WOMAN, but Carey said 
she preferred to sing her own songs. So King flew from her home in Idaho 
to New York, where the two co-wrote IF IT'S OVER at the piano in about an 
hour. 
	"It was a true collaboration,"says King, who plans to enlist 
Carey on her next album. "I'd come up with an idea. She'd come back with 
something else...In the end we came up with what we both think is a 
wonderful song. I love her voice. She's very expressive. She gives a lot 
of meaning to what she sings."
	Carey has spent months happily cloistered in the studio, but with 
only a half dozen live performances to her credit, she has yet to 
establish herself as an entertainer.
	"She's becoming a more relaxed performer," says Afanasieff. "She 
was timid initially. She gets nervous and she doesn't have that carefree, 
flamboyant attitude. But she was really smiling when she sang on the MTV 
Awards."
	"I know I have to go out and perform eventually," says Carey, a 
shade of dread in her voice. She has no plans to tour. "It's hard for me 
because I'm not a ham. You have to be dynamic and showy, and that's not 
second nature for me. I didn't get the chance to work my way up from 
clubs. And all of a sudden, I was on ARSENIO HALL. It's scary."
	Despite night-owl habits -- she sleeps until 2:30 p.m. and leaves 
the studio about 5 a.m. -- Carey avoids New York's social circuit, 
preferring the coziness of her Upper East Side apartment and the company 
of her two cats. "I'm not a partier. I don't go to clubs, because the 
smoke bothers my voice."
	She's reportedly involved with Sony Music President Tommy 
Mottola, the executive producer fo both her albums. Carey deflects all 
questions about her love life. Does she have a boyfriend? "Sort of, but 
I'd rather not get into it."
	For now, music defines Carey. "I can't picture myself having a 
baby. Girls growing up talk constantly about getting married and having 
kids. I always talked about music. It was my hobby and now it's my life. 
It's hard to focus on anything else."