Kelis Rogers

A few weeks ago, while browsing through a deli in her West Harlem neighborhood, singer Kelis Rogers tasted the perils of sudden fame. "There were these two guys just standing there, staring at me," she recalls. "One of them finally says, 'Are you the girl that has that song?' I'm like, 'Yeah, what's up?' The other guy looks at me with such disgust, and he says, 'Why are you so angry?' I'm like, 'Well, you sound a little bitter, actually. Why are you taking the song so personally?'

The intro to Kelis' sassy and seductive third album, "Tasty," starts in suitably savory fashion. "I'm gonna give you some things to taste and you tell me what you think, OK?" she says suggestively. A plastic wrapper of some kind bristles in the background, followed by some munching mumbles and a robotic male voice saying, "Mmmmm ..."

The intro to Kelis' sassy and seductive third album, "Tasty," starts in suitably savory fashion. "I'm gonna give you some things to taste and you tell me what you think, OK?" she says suggestively. A plastic wrapper of some kind bristles in the background, followed by some munching mumbles and a robotic male voice saying, "Mmmmm ..."

A few weeks ago, while browsing through a deli in her West Harlem neighborhood, singer Kelis Rogers tasted the perils of sudden fame. "There were these two guys just standing there, staring at me," she recalls. "One of them finally says, 'Are you the girl that has that song?' I'm like, 'Yeah, what's up?' The other guy looks at me with such disgust, and he says, 'Why are you so angry?' I'm like, 'Well, you sound a little bitter, actually. Why are you taking the song so personally?'

It's midnight and Nas is out of patience. Hunched over his glass of Patron in the dim bar of a Manhattan hotel, the renowned rapper has been asked to explicate what he calls the greatest song he's ever written: "Bridging the Gap," a genre-bending collaboration with his father, jazz trumpeter Olu Dara.