This showing-off session is witnessed by a small, privileged audience: just a friend of a friend, a stylist, an assistant, a publicist, a makeup artist and Mase's manager. But judging by the 21-year-old's energy, one might think that the Jacksonville -born/ Harlem-raised songwriter is co-headlining a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden with his mentor and boss, Puffy. After all, even though Mase claims to have been a lonely, shy kid growing up, he relishes all the attention he gets nowadays. And people--especially girls--sure don't mind giving it to him.

Mase is a rarity in the R&B world, in that all this attention and acclaim was hard-earned, not just handed over freely. He's performed his own lyrics on songs by Mariah Carey (the double-platinum single "Honey"), Puff Daddy (the insanely popular "It's All About The Benjamins"), Notorious B.I.G. ("Mo' Money, Mo' Problems") and Keith Sweat ("Just A Touch"), and his album Harlem World debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's album chart. But even before he was a chart-topper, he was a show-stopper, as the following gripping conversation will demonstrate:

LAUNCH: Do you think of yourself as a "ladies man"?

MASE: Do you find me attractive?

LAUNCH: I'm the one asking questions here.

MASE: Okay, I'll let you slide since I have you figured out already and I already know the answer. Well, do you like my music?

LAUNCH: That's more like it. You really have started to think that you're a cutie! I think people live their music too much and before they know it, they're all caught up in something they don't understand. And when they begin to understand where they've landed, it's too late to recover from the fall.

MASE: I don't live my music. Do you think that I'm a stressful man to work with? Do you think I'm one of those characters you was talking about? Nah, not me. In my music, I'm not caught up, I'm just tellin' a story. I try to bring all the lies to light.

LAUNCH: Do you care about how the public receives you? Meaning, do you take criticism personally? It seems as though you are a little bit worried about who likes you and who doesn't.

MASE: I like the people who like me. I would like to know if Miss Hunter didn't like me or not and she'd know if I didn't like her [he says this as if I'm in another room], but I can't care about what everybody thinks. If I wanna know how someone feels I may ask them, but every question I ask a person, I already know the answer. People's perception of me, though, is too much to think about all the time. I have enough to do, just keeping up with me.

LAUNCH: If the person on the records and onstage is a true reflection of yourself, then you come across as a fake person.

MASE: Why, because on one of the interludes on my album, when you hear me asking a girl does she miss me? That's something I would ordinarily do, but I don't be saying it's my boy or my mother on the other line like the person [which is himself] does on the record if it ain't. I wanted people who claim to be playas to know that their shit is played out. Don't be using that lame "that's my mother on the other line, I gotta go" bullshit. If you wanna play, play hard.

LAUNCH: Judging by your music, you're the guy in the movie that gets the girl instead of the one that gets chumped.

MASE: I'm really like a loner. I get my share of the girls, but it's not like in the songs. I'm another guy in the songs, a regular guy. Mase the rapper on TV and in videos is always jumpin' around, dancin' and stuff, and I'm Mason the guy that never lived the gangsta life. If you see me with a bunch of people, something's going on, like a show or somethin'. I walked into this photo shoot by myself. In my song I say, "Mason that's the guy that'll pay for your phone...Mase be the one that will take you home...even though I'm not the one that gave you the stones..."

LAUNCH: Tell me more about the difference between Mase and Mason. Are they more alike than you'd care to admit?

MASE: Sometimes I speak of myself in third person. You never thought of that, huh? Pretty intelligent, huh? The guy who went to school and played basketball, the one with the snotty nose and the a'ight body, is me. I used to play sports. Everyone has an image they try to live up to. Everybody plays a character. Basically, the girls love Mase. They don't love me.

LAUNCH: Were you popular as a child?

MASE: Not real popular, because I stayed to myself. I was always watching and learning about people from afar.

LAUNCH: Today your slow cadence has set you apart from all of the other MCs, but did kids used to tease you because you talked so slow?

MASE: Yeah, they used to tease me, because I talked slow, but I explained, "I talk calm. I don't talk slow." There's a difference. People used to bother me about that. Even women tried to see what they could do to get me all excited. I never changed my pace.

LAUNCH: Your pace is part of the reason why Puffy was interested in signing you. In an interview I did with him some time back, he said that you were a great songwriter and you had a unique flow. How do you respond to that compliment?

MASE: I owe everything to that man. I don't mind being Robin and letting him be Batman.

LAUNCH: You're still a superhero, nonetheless. Tell me a little about the album. What are your reasons for making some of the standout cuts, like "Take Yours" and "24 Hours To Live"?

MASE: The reasons? Well, "Take Yours" is a song for everybody who thinks Mase is such a pushover. I rhyme about happy things compared to the hardcore MCs. So, I tell them, "If I wanted to, I could take yours"--as in their spot. Another song, "Will They Die For You," asks how many friends you really got when times get tough. You be this artist who sells a lot of records and if you smoke they get high wit' you. If you drink, they get drunk with you. But how many of them are going to be there when it counts to be there?

LAUNCH: That's a good question. On a lighter level, what inspired "Why You Over There Lookin' At Me"?

MASE: It's for all the guys that see a girl in a club who look better than their girl. I wondered why girls would be lookin' at me when Puffy and B.I.G. was in the room. "Love You So" is a song I put together for all the people who showed me love. Everyone who bought my CD I said, "I love you so." I love my fans and I like most of the people I've met in the industry. It don't matter what label you on or where you from. When it all boils down to it, we're all just minorities trying to make money.

LAUNCH: Were you purposely trying to incorporate a little reggae flavor when you added, "Do Wanna Hurt Me"? The album's like a rhythmic seesaw. The beats are never predictable.

MASE: The beats are supposed to be different. When I came up with the song, I was questioning the credibility of what people say about me. There was people who love Mase and people who hate Mase and when I really thought about it, I'm getting all the attention either way. The majority of people like me, so I can live with that. You gonna get the bitter with the sweet with anything in life.