LEGGING IT: This is why Rihanna had to insure her legs for US$1 million. -- PHOTO: UNIVERSAL MUSIC

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With her luscious bronzed skin and those US$1 million-insured legs that go on for miles - well, at least in the publicity shots and that sizzling music video with her dancing with a cane and a bowler hat - she is smokin' hot.

And she is blazing charts everywhere, with her single Umbrella making it to the top in the United States and Britain, among other countries.

It's no wonder the 19-year-old from the Caribbean island of Barbados has been touted the next Beyonce Knowles, arguably America's biggest R&B star.

But why her when there are many other equally sexy and talented starlets like Eve and Amerie?

For starters, Rihanna has a trump card - in the form of a mentor, Def Jam mogul Jay-Z, who also happens to be Beyonce's beau.

Robyn Rihanna Fenty was born on Feb 20, 1988, in Saint Michael, Barbados, to a white Barbadian father and a black Guyanese mother. She has two younger brothers, Rorey and Rajad. ... more

He not only produced her latest album Good Girl Gone Bad, he also appeared in it and roped in a stellar cast of collaborators including Ne-Yo and Timbaland.

The result: Rihanna is so sizzling, the buzz is she's on the verge of superstardom.

So it comes as a disappointment that, up close, the R&B nymphet is rather bland.

She arrived here on Wednesday for a one-day stopover as part of a promotion tour organised by her label Universal, and met reporters from the region yesterday.

Her svelte 1.73m figure clad in a classy black ensemble of a peeka-boo top and figure-hugging hipster pants (alas, we couldn't see her legs), she is a picture of unfailing composure.

Framed by an assymetrical bob, her face is more pretty than sensual. She smiles and is unfailingly courteous, her voice a gentle girlish wisp.

But overall, she is reticent, delivering frustratingly brief answers that sound almost rehearsed.

But perhaps you can't really blame her. After all, the poor girl is on a tighter-than-tight schedule.

She arrived from Los Angeles, and after her Singapore stop, she and her six-person entourage - comprising her assistant, artiste manager, tour manager, a bodyguard, a make-up artist and hair stylist - will be flying to Tokyo where she will be doing her bit to save Mother Nature at a Live Earth concert.

She has reserved a precious 15 minutes (trimmed from the 20 minutes promised) to be grilled by the press in a suite at the Conrad Centennial Hotel.

Suffice to say that she would rather talk about the album, her musical heroes (Mariah, Madonna, Tina Turner) and fashion than her personal life.

The closest thing to a touchy subject is when one scribe asks if there is any truth to the rumour that Jay-Z was controlling her social life.

Not missing a beat, she counters calmly, looking straight at the reporter: 'It's not true. I choose to see who I want to see, and who I don't want to see.'

So who does she think her chart rival is, another scribe ventures.

Rihanna doesn't flinch. Politely she says she is her own competition.

As she sees it, it'd be hard for her to keep her focus at the top if she spends her time wondering what her competition is up to, she adds diplomatically.

No more Miss Innocent

AND the top she did go. Good Girl Gone Bad debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts last month and has already spawned two smash singles, Umbrella and Shut Up And Drive.

Umbrella has been staying at No. 1 for seven weeks in the British singles chart.

For Rihanna, the album signals a new stage in her pop evolution. It is edgier and funkier than her previous offerings, The Music Of The Sun (2005) and A Girl Like Me (2006).

'While A Girl Like Me is an album for the girls to put into my shoes and try to relate to them, Good Girl Gone Bad is more of me as an individual and the artist that I have become and I want people to know the real me,' she says.

Perchance this would explain the heightened sexual frisson in her music videos of late, but even then the good girl in her resurfaces.

She has not gone totally bad, as her album title suggests.

To her, bad is more a metaphor for growth: an attitude and a rebellious act to break out from the 'innocent shell that she's been trapped in', she is quick to clarify.

In showbiz for the long haul, she is particularly mindful not to burn out like so many pop starlets.

As she said in an interview in United States men's magazine Complex last month, she does not intend to end up like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan.

'I'm just not the type to get sucked into bulls**t. Everyone has control of what they do as an individual. I'm very sure about who I am as a person and what I'm here to do,' she declared.

Or as she tells Life!: 'It's all about being an individual. I was raised in a very different place. And keeping good people around me helps me to be focused and grounded.'

In fact, she sees herself as a positive role model for teens, more so now that she is nominated for four awards at the upcoming Teen Choice Awards.

Since she is not a girl not yet a woman, does she miss hanging out with people her own age, busy that she is?

Her reply is revealing: 'I have never hung out with friends my age... I do miss my friends, my family and culture and I miss Barbados more than anything.'

douglast@sph.com.sg