Fergie Dances With Herself

"I'm not claiming to be a battle MC," she says. "That's not where I'm taking this. This is just paying homage to artists like Roxanne Shante, Monie Love, Salt-n-Pepa, J.J. Fad -- women I looked up to." Fergie loves hip-hop, but she has always known she's an outsider. "In junior high I was fascinated by gangsta rap," she says, sipping a caipirinha. "I was suburban, yet I had glimpses from where I lived. I'm hearing all the stories about what was going on in East L.A. and South Central, looking at it from the outside. I think I come from a whole generation of that. That's why a lot of people can relate with me, because they lived that, too. Seeing it but not really living it. So there weren't any of the negative consequences to the guns and all of that. It was just interesting and sexy."

Today, Fergie is wearing oversize black bug-eyed glasses, a droopy gray low-cut shirt, thigh-hugging shorts and a necklace with a tiny replica of brass knuckles. Her long blond hair hangs down past her shoulders with a modern scruffiness -- you know, that I-didn't-do-my-hair thing. She looks over the Pastis menu and lays eyes on the homemade mushroom ravioli with sage, walnuts and brown butter. She's a tiny girl, a size two, who works out every day and gets meals delivered to her by a diet service so she doesn't have to think about what she's eating. Still, she struggles to stay on her diet and often cheats. She licks her lips and says, almost in awe, "Brown butter." Then a moment later, to herself, "Ferguson, behave." She orders the baby chicken, no brown butter.

Stacy ferguson was born and raised in Whittier, California, and as young as four or five she loved performing for herself in the mirror. "She was always dancing for everyone," says her mom, Terri Jackson. "We'd go to the county fair and she wasn't in the shows or anything, but she'd just hop up on a makeshift stage and sing and dance." To this day she still performs for the mirror. Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas says, "She'll dance in the hotel by herself. I'll call her up and she'll say, 'Yo, I'm having a dance-off!' 'With who?' 'With myself!' She looks in the mirror and goes at it."

At six, she discovered concerts. "I saw Tina Turner, second row, with my dad. She pointed at me. That was big. I love how she was energetic and raw. Those early impressions tell you how things are supposed to be. I've taken a lot of that with me."

At seven she decided what she wanted most in life. "I was going to have an album and that was it," she says. "I told my mom that's what I was going to do. She said, 'OK. As long as you get good grades.' " Both of her parents are teachers. "My dad was a high school teacher -- football, geography, vice principal, detention. My mom is a speech therapist and teaches special ed."

As a child, Stacy did TV commercials, was the voice of Sally and, later, Lucy in several Charlie Brown specials, appeared on Married,,,With Children, and at eight began five years on the syndicated variety show Kids Incorporated. "In Kids Incorporated, I'm in the studio at eight years old, behind a microphone, learning the techniques. I was a little adult. I had to be professional on the set -- you can't break out into a tantrum, so I learned. I always wanted to appease and put on a strong face and not let anyone know if there was something bothering me."