With each of his three albums making "ghetto" references in their titles, some might get the impression the singer is simply capitalizing on a well-received theme. His fans know it's not just a handy façade.

He was 2 when his father died. The years that followed saw him develop vocal talent -- thanks, in part, to his grandfather, one-time Drifters singer Victor Hoagland -- and fall into trouble.

By age 15, he'd honed his singing skills at family reunions and was already a three-time winner of the talent contest at the Apollo Theater.

At age 16, he was beginning five years probation for a drug conviction. The same year, his mother died.

Through the trouble, he kept singing. On the strength of one of his tapes, he was signed by Divine Mill Records, a division of Warner Bros. In 2001, the year he turned 22, he released his debut album, "Ghetto Love." The album established a successful template from which he continues to work.

"Ghetto Love" alternated brushes of hip-hop elements over R&B songs. The record firmly established him as an artist who melded influences from earlier stars such as Marvin Gaye into a unique voice, and over the course of his debut and its followup, 2002's "Still Ghetto," he drew listeners into songs about friends, lovers and parenting.

With dusky vocals that reached out to female fans -- but that have enough edge to entertain the guys -- both albums went platinum. Jaheim took a break from recording after "Still Ghetto," but the response to this year's "Ghetto Classics" made it clear that he'd not drifted far from his fans' minds, as the album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Kicking off with sampled music from Willie Hutch's 1973 song "I Choose You," "The Chosen One" is one of Jaheim's brightest moments. As with his early work, he teamed with ex-Naughty By Nature/present Divine Mill label head Kaygee for the production of "Ghetto Classics."

After two shows at Madison Square Garden last weekend opening for Mary J. Blige, which he describes as "something like a miracle," we caught up with Jaheim, by cell phone from New York, and asked about his latest musical efforts, his greatest inspiration and the juice card Warner Bros. didn't have to keep him.

Between continuing to tour with MJB, Jaheim is scheduled to perform at Friday's at Sunset in Richmond, where he says he's got plenty of love.

Ghetto themes are prevalent in your work. Why do you draw so heavily from that?

'Cause I'm from the hood. No matter where you are, how clean it might look, there's always gon' be a neighborhood that becomes a ghetto. The ghetto, it's a sense of class. Just because you're ghetto doesn't mean you can't be this or you can't have that. Ghetto is a fashion. Ghetto is colorful. Ghetto is history. Ghetto is everything.

What other things would you like to explore musically? Who would you like to work with in the future?

I don't have any more idols in the music game, so it's like whoever's serious about this craft, whoever wants it, I'm willing to work with anybody. I don't have a favorite; it would've been Luther [Vandross] but Aretha [Franklin] would probably be the next one. Aretha takes you back to the essence, to the beginning where there were no real female soul singers, when you tend to appreciate the elements that are still out there . . . Mary [J. Blige] is a modern day Aretha Franklin, Jennifer Holliday, all that.

How have your experiences with incarceration, the death of your parents and other things you might have gone through along the way, shaped you as an artist and as a person?

It never did shape me or change me as a person. I changed myself. You have to want change, and losing my mother had a lot to do with the change.

What were you locked up for at 16 exactly?

I don't think that's important. I've been incarcerated a lot of times. I did my time, and I'm home now. I'm a grown [expletive] man and that was the past and we all live and learn. There's nothing to hide or nothing to fall back from it. That was so long ago and this is today, and everything's behind me now.

What influence has Luther Vandross had on you as an artist?

I saw Luther one day on a TV special . . . and he sang a Sam Cooke song that really touched me, "A Change is Gonna Come." I had never really heard anybody sing anything that beautiful with that much affection, and it just made you feel like a change was really gon' come and I went out and had to have everything he ever did.

What have been some of the transitions you've taken and how have you evolved over the course of the three albums you've put out?

I'm not on Warner Bros. anymore. . . . There are people behind me now that are really going be like a real machine to Jaheim, to see my vision and take me where I need to go.

I wasn't being heard, wasn't getting the attention I needed. What other way could I say it? It just wasn't about Jaheim, really.

When you claim the ghetto, you gotta take what comes with it. People treat you like you're ghetto and that's how they treated me, like I was a stamp a ghetto stamp. I'm with Atlantic now. People are coming to the table, people that are on it, people that want to win, people that can make things happen.

It's really all about the juice card and, in this business, its about who you know so I can't blame Warner Bros. for a lack of communication. You've gotta know people that know people.

What did you do in your time off after "Still Ghetto?"

I wasn't happy. I was just moving and everybody else was happy, so I took time off to get my health right, to get my family right. Time to get my foundation right, to get my spiritual life right and I took time to find love, to experience love.

What are you giving people from your work on this year's "Ghetto Classics?"

"Ghetto Classics" was more of a dedication to the ghetto world that I created in my mind, in my heart, just to show them I can do ghetto classic songs and be from the same environment, and be who I be and do what I do and show it's all right to have a ghetto classic charm -- meaning live production -- and just taking it there on some of my songs.

What's next?

Definitely looking forward to the next one to be released November or December. When I did the album ["Ghetto Classics"], we did a double album but just put out half of it. So we're releasing the rest of that then.