Kaci Brown has been performing since she was three and lived in the tiny town of Sulphur Springs, Texas. She writes her own songs and plays her own instruments. She recorded her first album, a country album, when she was thirteen. It ended up not getting released, when it was finished right after the September 11th attacks. Now as Brown hits sweet seventeen and finally her new pop disk has been released and the debut single "Unbelievable" has been making serious headway on the radio. Still she has heard the whispers. Brown knows that it is kind of an industry standard these days, but as a singer who has thrown herself into performing for longer than she remembers, she still hates the idea that people might believe it of her. "I? a real artist," Brown insists. "I play all my own instruments. I write my own material. And I do not lip-synch. I sing live." It seems like such a simple thing that it should be the norm, however lots of pop singers over the years have been caught leaning on the tape, culminating in last year's Saturday Night Live performance by Ashlee Simpson. So every young singer has been suspect. However, that would be a betrayal of her audience to Kaci Brown. She is a singer, not a dancer. She wants to be heard. "I really love live performing," she says. "That is my thing. Whether people come watch me or don? want to come watch me I?l be performing live for the rest of my life. Someway or somehow. That? my favorite part of all of this. Connecting with the people, right there in that moment" The closest she ever came was on her recent tour with the Backstreet Boys. Not that there was even a second of consideration that she would not sing. However, as a young artist just releasing her first album and going on her first major tour, they were not able to afford bringing her band with her, and it killed her. It made one of the most exciting breakthroughs in her career a mixed blessing. "I was forced to sing with