Independent woman.

Taking full creative control after a bumpy history with her old label, Sophie B. Hawkins talks about getting older and getting her act together

It's difficult for Sophie B. Hawkins to talk about the rush she felt back in 1992, when a lusty love song inspired by her unrequited love for a woman--"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover"--became a hit single with a high-rotation video on MTV, because she had no idea she was a success. "The message I got from my record label at the time [Columbia]--and this was on purpose--was that I wasn't selling enough. Even when the single was a hit, it wasn't enough of a hit--I never got to number 1; I only got to number 5. And MTV didn't like the first video for the song, and we had to do another one. So I never felt anything except how bad I was and like, `Oh, shame on you!'"

The song was on Hawkins's debut album, Tongues and Tails, which brought her a Grammy nomination as Best New Artist, but she remained totally green regarding the perils of the industry. Nevertheless, the multitalented singer-songwriter-musician and self-described "omnisexual" recalls clearly what she gained from the experience, especially when her label balked at releasing her second album, Whaler. "When Sony [Columbia's parent] decided to really dis me, that's when I saw myself finally become a fighter," Hawkins explains. "That's when I knew what I was made of and I became a person of character." Hawkins convinced the label to let her tour to support Whaler, and the result was the hit song "As I Lay Me Down"--one of the longest-charting hit singles of all time. But Columbia must have been scared but good by Hawkins's scrappy spirit--the label released her from her contract and let her walk away with her third album, Timbre. A less-evolved version of the record had a very limited release on Columbia, but Hawkins is now rereleasing it on her own new indie imprint, Trumpet Swan Records, through the British label Rykodisc.

Fortunately, Hawkins has found real support for her third and most confident effort, both at her label (where she has total creative control) and in her unconventional alliance with writer Gigi Gaston, who after a chance meeting with Hawkins decided to make a documentary about her. The result, The Cream Will Rise, offers up a very raw portrait of Hawkins as she confronts dark family secrets and the postpartum depression of fame. The film-video collaboration, with sketchy boundaries (both women have quite a visible presence in the doc), worked out so well that Gaston is now Hawkins's manager. (Cream is now showing on the Sundance Channel, with a final airing set for April 28.)

Hawkins credits Gaston with helping her fight the good fight, which includes coming up with promotion and marketing ideas'that can have a large impact with a small budget. The first single off Timbre, "Walking in Blue Jeans," is already tied to an ad campaign for Calvin Klein's new line of jeans for real, curvy women. "No one is really marketing music to women over 30. I think my music especially speaks to them because of shared life experience, so the jeans cross-promotion is perfect," says Hawkins, who is totally unafraid of being a visible and viable 30-something pop star.

"I'm not 40 yet, but I've always looked forward to getting there," Hawkins adds. "I like feeling like an older woman because I feel, when kids come up to me in the park and treat me like a mother figure, like I've crossed some kind of bridge. I genuinely feel that everything is better and that women get sexier when we get older."