While most kids his age are concerned with adding to their baseball card collections or wrangling a first part-time job, Bow Wow has been busy starring in a major motion picture, making sure his rap career is on course and recording a song with P. Diddy -- and he's not even old enough to drive.

Bow Wow worked with the rap mogul, whom he'd met before at the 2002 MTV Movie Awards and at several Sean John clothing events, and Brandy on the song "Dance With Us" for the soundtrack to the upcoming animated film The Wild Thornberrys. Writing and recording his part for the track came naturally -- the song's about dancing. "It's like a party type of song," he says. "A dancin' type of song. I do a lot of familiar dances that people know."

This is not the first time Bow Wow has done movie and soundtrack work. This past summer he starred in Like Mike, in which he portrayed a teenager with dreams of becoming a basketball star and also contributed to the soundtrack, performing several tracks. The young rapper, who had been on movie and television sets since he was a child, admits that his first foray into acting was difficult. "It was kinda hard to deal with at first," he says. "But then, after a while I really got used to it, acting coaches and different things like that. It's good just having the opportunity to try something new, just get away from the whole rappin' thing for a minute."

With all the fame and fortune, Bow Wow manages to take a No Big Deal attitude towards his career. "I've been in this [business] since I was five," he says, "so it's been like ten years now. I'm just growin' in the business, I'm just learning a lot."

The Wild Thornberrys arrives in theaters nationwide on December 20th through Paramount Pictures.

KERRY SMITH
(November 26, 2002)