TONI'S SECRET WORLD

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

Even she admits it. "singers are a dime a dozen," says Toni Braxton. "And record companies have a dollar." So what makes vocalist Braxton, just 28 years old, so special? Why is her new album, Secrets, only her second, fighting it out for the top slot on the Billboard charts with such heavyweights as thrash-metal veterans Metallica?

Her looks are often what people focus on. It's hard not to. Her eyes are sloped, inviting, penetrating. At 5 ft. 2 in., she's small but also lithe, with a tiny waist and a size-2 build. And in person she also turns out to be one of those energetic sorts who seem much taller. "I'm a happy person by nature. I'm spunky," she says. "And don't let me eat presweetened cereal, or it's over." But she also confides: "I'm kind of private, but not aloof. I just like being by myself; I don't open up a lot of times to people."

Except in her music. Her first album, Toni Braxton, produced by R.-and-B. hitmakers Antonio ("L.A.") Reid and Kenny ("Babyface") Edmonds, swam against the tide. While other R.-and-B. singers were getting louder, brasher, naughtier, Braxton's songs were slower, heavier, laden with emotion. And they had an attitude. Her first hit, Love Shoulda Brought You Home, admonished a man who had been staying out too late; the song Best Friend (which Braxton co-wrote) is a barbed note to a boyfriend who had an affair with his lover's best friend.

Listeners were drawn to these songs because they were about things they had gone through; Braxton sang them because they were about things she had gone through. Says Braxton: "Most of the things that I write or sing about are based on true stories in my life." For example, when she was in college (she attended several schools, including Bowie State College in Bowie, Maryland, but never finished), her then best friend took up with her then boyfriend. Says Braxton, laughing: "After I released the song Best Friend, I heard through acquaintances that this ex-boyfriend wanted publishing rights."

Her new CD, on which she works once again with producer-writers L.A. and Babyface, is somewhat more kinetic than her first. On such songs as Come on Over Here, the rhythms are forceful, dynamic, danceable; these are the kinds of songs you can expect to hear booming out of car windows for the rest of the summer. The best tracks, however, are the midtempo songs, such as Let It Flow (which was also on the Waiting to Exhale sound track) and Why Should I Care. These numbers are poignant, melodic and lovely at points, but Braxton's lush contralto gives them substance and meaning. "The things I sing about, women can identify with," she says. "Although they're sad love songs, I always sound determined. I always try to portray it like everything's going to be O.K.; I'm still strong."

Braxton herself is an intriguing mix of strength and vulnerability, of pop-star outgoingness and old-school reserve. The oldest of six kids, Braxton grew up in the small town of Severn, Maryland, where, she says, her father was a minister in search of a religion: "We went through everything, from being Jehovah's Witnesses to being United Methodists," she recalls.

For one long stretch during her formative grade school years, the family belonged to what she describes as the "very strict" Apostolic Church. As a member, says Braxton, she had to wear long dresses, hats and other modest garb, something that made her stand out, uncomfortably, among her schoolmates. Also setting her apart was the fact that she wasn't allowed to listen to the type of secular music that she now specializes in. But as she neared the end of high school, her father loosened up the rules--and Braxton bought her first pair of pants. "They were Levi's," she says. "I'll never forget. Straight-legged Levi's. From there I got to wear nail polish--like a very pale pink." She even threw a pool party senior year--although the only music she was permitted to play was gospel.

Today Braxton, with her frankly sexual (though never explicit) songs, seems to be making up for lost time. The first single released from Secrets, You're Makin Me High, deals with masturbation. Another song bears the blunt title Find Me a Man. Her parents, she says, are proud of her music, and her father, in church, prays for her albums to climb the charts. Three of her sisters, Towanda, Trina and Tamar, have their own vocal group, the Braxtons (Toni was once a member but went solo). Braxton, however, isn't completely fulfilled. Although she is "dating," she says she is still looking for "that special someone." She says, "What good is having all this success if you don't have someone to share it with?" It's a plaintive query, but one gets the feeling that Braxton will be O.K. She's wearing the pants now.