Music: Street But Sweet

With a hot CD and parts in an Anne Rice film and The Matrix sequels, Aaliyah is the queen of the day

Seduction and bloodletting are not topics that shy girls tend to bring up. But during an interview in a Manhattan hotel, self-described shy girl Aaliyah manages to touch on both.

The actress (in last year's action hit Romeo Must Die) and hip-hop soul singer (her third CD, Aaliyah, on Blackground/ Virgin, came out last week) is talking gleefully about a love scene in her next movie. It's Anne Rice's The Queen of the Damned, and Aaliyah, 22, plays the boss vampire Akasha. "Akasha is very manipulative," she says. "She and Lestat [a character played by Tom Cruise in Interview with a...

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