By Janelle Gelfand
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Nicole C. Mullen (Tennessean photo)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Nicole C. Mullen is singing. She's in another world, transfixed at her own image on a computer screen on her desk - smiling, nodding to the beat, reliving the moment.

"Mama looks like coffee, daddy looks like cream, baby is a mocha drop American dream," she sings softly, in the room at home where she composes the music. On the screen is her first DVD, Live From Cincinnati, Bringin' It Home, filmed at the Aronoff Center last year, out with a companion CD on Word/Warner Brothers Tuesday. With a click of the mouse, the music dissolves.

"The biggest challenge of fame," says the singer/songwriter, "is remaining who you are, and not what people think, or want you to be. There are times when I go out to Wal-Mart, and times that I don't dress up. I'm a mom and a wife first, and I'm Nicole C. Mullen third."

A combination of talent and faith turned into multiplatinum Christian success for Mullen. She's the first African-American to be named Songwriter of the Year - and the first female in 20 years. The seven-time Dove Award winner has been Female Vocalist of the Year, and her album Talk About It was nominated for a Grammy.

"It's the light of God that people really see in her," says Cincinnati musician Bootsy Collins, master of funk, who has known about Mullen's talent since she was a little girl. "Her talent is secondary to the life that God gave her to carry out, and I think she's doing a heck of a job to go out and spread the good news. God is universal, and so she is also."

IF YOU GO

What: Nicole C. Mullen performs live in concert When: 3 p.m. today Where: Northgate Mall, central mall area Information: 542-9393 (WAKW 93.3) or 385-7065 (the mall)

Mullen was at her home outside of Nashville, on a sunny fall day. The kids were at school; the baby was taking a nap, and hubby/producer David Mullen was at the recording studio in nearby Franklin. She was preparing to do her weekly volunteer work after lunch - mentoring young girls in her "Baby Girls Club." It was like any domestic scene - except that Nicole C. Mullen is the reigning queen of contemporary Christian music, and this was a rare day off.

The road to Mullen's 42-acre farm is about an hour from anywhere, down winding, two-lane country roads, past sprawling, white-fenced horse farms, manicured pastures, quaint towns and breathtaking estates. It's one of the richest communities in the nation: The mansions of country and Christian music stars dot the landscape like rhinestones on a country-western shirt.

Suddenly, there it is - not a mansion, but a hundred-year-old, white frame farmhouse up a gravel driveway. Mullen smiles broadly and extends her hand. She has milk-chocolate skin, wears little makeup and giant hoop earrings. Her blue jeans with sheepskin bell-bottoms are topped with a print tank top, showing off well-toned arms.

"We have two dogs, sometimes additional strays, about 100 cats, or so it seems, and five horses right now," she laughs.

She projects exuberance, even early in the day. Her hair is a thick riot of ringlets - a "Senegalese twist" - behind a blue headband. She sips ice water through a straw from a red paper cup, marked with her initials, so no one else picks it up.

There is usually a houseful of people at the Mullens - friends, family or musicians, plus a Spanish-speaking married couple who do chores. Cincinnati relatives often visit: Mullen had "boot camp" there so her daughter and three Cincinnati nieces could learn dance moves for the DVD.

Today, Robin Sanders, her choreographer, is asleep in a bedroom with her newborn baby. They've just returned from playing a Billy Graham Crusade in Tulsa, Okla.

"It's just good to go home and not be around the industry folk, just go home and hang out. Wear shorts and T-shirts," says Mullen.

Madisonville choir

You don't have to prod her to talk about her Cincinnati roots. Two days earlier, she had made a quick visit to her hometown, to be with her mother, who had surgery for a benign mass. They prayed together before surgery.

"Growing up as kids, our parents always prayed at six in the morning, and we hated it!" says Mullen, over lunch in the breakfast nook of her newly remodeled kitchen. "Before my mom was admitted to the hospital, she said, 'you know, I still pray every morning.' I thought that was the sweetest thing. Thirty years from now, when it's just my husband and me, I would love to be able to think that my kids are passing it on to their kids.

"I left thinking I'm rich - not because of monetary things, but I'm rich."

She grew up Nicole Coleman, singing with her two older sisters, Marie and Teresa, at church, New Life Temple in Madisonville - and deciding at age 12 that she wanted to be a singer. For years, she practiced in her kitchen, holding a hairbrush like a microphone, thinking, "If they call me, I've got to be ready."

She was called - to sing for weddings, funerals and church services. She attended song-writing seminars, and entered songs in contests. It was a long road.

"There were times when it seemed that no one would ever call. I remember whining one day and saying, 'God, nobody's calling me and this may never work.' "

Her parents, Mary Jane and Napoleon Coleman Jr., both "great singers," were role models, says fellow musician Collins, who belonged to the same church.

"Her upbringing by her parents in the church at a very young age helped her to have a personal life with Christ in her adult life," Collins says. "She was developing her talents and skills to be displayed at a later date. Sometimes you have to jump out of the nest to discover what God's plan is for your life."

Backed up Amy Grant

Mullen broke into the business first as a backup singer and choreographer for Christian music stars Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, the Newsboys and David Mullen, a multiplatinum singer/songwriter, who had a record contract with Warner Brothers. David eventually became her husband.

Her style is neo-gospel - an eclectic blend of soul, R&B, hip-hop and funk. The lessons she learned along the way in the mostly white contemporary Christian music industry give depth to her message - things like the doors closed to her because she was African-American.

"I think part of it was, and some of it is still - people not knowing where to place me," she says. "At first it was, if you're brown skinned, then it's black gospel music. Well, my style of music is not black gospel."

Despite her awards, some radio stations still refuse to play her music, because, she says, they are afraid of the skin color.

"Our color only describes us; it was never intended to define us," she says, picking at her sandwich, barely eating.

Eight years ago, the Mullens bought their farmhouse. Although the couple has nearly doubled its size in the past year, it's not ready for a spread in Town & Country. Mullen is nonplussed at having visitors see its lived-in clutter.

Mullen's Dove trophies, industry award plaques and platinum records line the walls of her workroom - the sun-filled study just off the kitchen. Her guitar leans against a chair - she learned to play a few chords on it some years ago, but mostly, she composes at the computer.

Next to her Midi-keyboard lie a baby rattle and a shoe belonging to 7-month-old Josiah, her angel. "We'll find the other one, one of these days," she laughs.

Her family is the joy of her life. Mullen and her husband are an interracial couple. Jasmine, 9, sings "Black, White, Tan" with her mom on the DVD. Maxwell, 6, was adopted, Mullen says, because "I always wanted to adopt, ever since I was a child. My mom and dad adopted children; my grandparents, aunts and uncles adopted children," she says. "In the future, we may adopt a little girl."

Maxwell, she laughs, "looks more like me than any of them." Lean and athletic - she ran track at Walnut Hills High - she likes to throw hoops with him.

Josiah is her "miracle baby." After complications with her first child, who was premature, doctors advised her to adopt rather than risk another premature delivery.

"So when I conceived Josiah, I didn't know it. I thought I was having a heartburn," she laughs.

There's no nanny. When she's off the road, Mullen likes to play with her children. She's a homebody, who cooks big dinners, including Thanksgiving dinner for 40 or 50 and enjoys sewing. She's proud of her re-upholstering job on a chaise her husband discovered in an antiques auction.

Upstairs, she stenciled pink flowers on the ceiling of her daughter's bedroom - "one of those nesting things that I just had to get out of my system," she says.

Near the children's' bedrooms on the second floor, Mullen opens a small door, revealing a bona-fide fire pole dropping down to the floor below.

Has she ever slid down? "All the time," she says, laughing.

"The first time I met her, it was the music awards week for Christian music, and she was coming down an escalator. I looked up, and wow! Who is that?" says David, her husband of 10 years.

They were introduced, became friends and she sang backup for him, before going on tour with Amy Grant. Later, they met up again in Los Angeles, and started dating.

Tough career decision

After they married and Jasmine was born, it became clear that one of them had to come off the road.

"I said, I know I'm good at this, but I'm not a 'star.' Even though she didn't have a record deal at that point, I could totally see that she would be huge," David says.

It was a tough decision, financially. He gave up his tour income, and became a fulltime songwriter/house husband. In five years, other singers recorded 200 of his songs. Nicole went on the road with Michael W. Smith, which gave her increased exposure, while little Jasmine tagged along with her dad to record company meetings.

Their decision worked.

"She went from having nothing, to being a fairly independently wealthy person in about 2 1/2 years," her husband says. "It was an amazing time. It was a testament to how faithful God will be if you're faithful to the true things - family, the love for a woman, those kind of things."

For Nicole, the challenge was taking the next step. Going solo. She was fearful, thinking, "I don't want to mess it up."

"It was as if God opened up the curtains and said, now it's your turn to take center stage," she says.

Her faith gave her the nerve to do it.

"I know it's nothing short of a God thing," she says. "He has taken a little girl that had no hopes, no prospects. Without him, I have nothing to say, really."

Lunch has gone uneaten.

"I eat on the run half the time," she says, wrapping her sandwich to eat in the car, and collecting baby, baby gear and car keys.

School was almost out, and Nicole C. Mullen was in "mommy-mode." It was time to go to the "Baby Girls Club."

E-mail jgelfand@enquirer.com