Aaliyah takes 'Journey' To the Oscars © USA TODAY 1997

Nineteen-year-old R&B star Aaliyah Haughton, known for her "street-but-sweet" style, says she'll break from her trademark sportswear-and-jeans look Monday night when she sings her Oscar-nominated Journey to the Past on the Academy Awards telecast. "I'm really not a dress girl," says the singer, who records as simply Aaliyah (ah-LEE-yuh). "I tell people that unless it's absolutely necessary, you won't catch me in a dress, but this is definitely an event where I'm going to wear a gown." Not even a year out of high school, she's already sold nearly 4 million copies of her first two albums, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number and One in a Million. She has racked up several hit singles and toured the world. But this will give her her biggest exposure yet. "The Oscars is a show my mother has been watching since she was a little girl, and I've been watching it with her since I was young, so to know that I'm going to be walking across that stage and singing is incredible," she says. Journey, from the animated Anastasia, already has paid big dividends for her. After singing it on Rosie O'Donnell's show in October, she was asked to audition for Elton John's musical Aida, scheduled to open on Broadway this fall. She's had two callbacks, though no final decision about casting has been made. But she's keeping her fingers crossed. "I'm just glad to have had the opportunity," says Aaliyah, a former dance major at the Detroit High School for the Performing Arts and a professional singer since age 9. "I've been successful as a singer, and that will always be my first love, but to have longevity in this business, you have to branch out." When she was just 11, Aaliyah performed on Star Search and shared a bill with Gladys Knight during a five-day engagement. But she was really thrust into the spotlight with her 1994 debut album, which included the hit singles At Your Best (You Are Love), an Isley Brothers remake, and the R&B chart-topper Back and Forth. "Having all the attention focused on me and doing my original music was overwhelming. It wasn't easy at first, but honestly, it felt great." Among the things that made it hard were rumors that the then-15-year-old had married singer and album producer R. Kelly, 10 years her senior. She and her family have always vehemently denied that there was ever any wedding. "It was hard for me, but my family sat me down and told me, 'You don't have any privacy. You really belong to the public, and you are under a microscope all the time.' At that age it was hard, but it helped put things into perspective. That's just something that goes with the territory." So did worry - over whether she could duplicate the first album's platinum success. But with the hits If Your Girl Only Knew, 4 Page Letter and One in a Million, her second album sold twice as well as the first. She'll be going back into the studio soon to start her third. An honors graduate from high school, she's weighing colleges, trying to decide which she wants to attend. Wherever it is, it will have to let her continue to mix business and schoolwork. "Dealing with school is something I've been trying to get comfortable with for a long time," she says. "High school was easier, because my principal was so supportive of what I was doing. I could be around the school, have my friends and some normalcy in my life. I went to my prom. But when I had to travel, I had a tutor." Working steadily for a decade hasn't made her feel that she has missed out on much growing up. Having family around has helped: She's managed by her parents, Michael and Diane Haughton, and she records for her uncle Barry Hankerson's Blackground Enterprises label (distributed by Atlantic Records). Her brother Rashad, a Hofstra University film major, is her creative consultant. He wrote the concept for the video for 4 Page Letter. "This is something that I truly love in my heart," she says. "I don't have parents who push me. I push them. Even when I was 9, I'd be asking them, 'Did anybody call for me to do anything?' "