Raven Symone's time in the spotlight began at a ridiculously young age as the precocious three-year-old Olivia who repeatedly popped by the Huxtable household in the waning years of THE COSBY SHOW. Her recording career started similarly early, with the 1993 kiddie-rap record HERE'S TO NEW DREAMS. The talented actress/singer stayed in the public eye while growing up, and at age 18 she released her third record, THIS IS MY TIME. A long way from tracks like "First Day of School" and "Hip Hop Teddybear," Symone here offers up music that is sweet, melodic, and definitely mature R&B, in the vein of another singer who got her start as a kid on a popular TV show--Janet Jackson.
Symone opens smartly with the peppery, jacked-up dance single "Mystify," followed by the throwback soul of the scorned-woman declaration "Backflip." She displays her comfort around a ballad on the fetching "What Is Love?," along with a predilection for poetry on the wide-eyed "Alice." On THIS IS MY TIME, Raven Symone declares herself an adult, and the result is a charming coming-out record.