In her other life, she's wicked Pinkett

Whether as a street-smart college student on the '90s sitcom "A Different World" or a tender-hearted bank robber in the 1996 action flick "Set It Off," actress Jada Pinkett Smith has brought to each of her roles in the past 15 years or so a homegirl-up-the-block authenticity.

For about five of those years -- when the performer and famed husband Will Smith weren't having babies or posing for paparazzi at Hollywood red-carpet events -- she's also been trying to keep it real in the music biz. And given her sassy, tough, sexy persona, you'd figure she would venture into rap or hip-hop-laced R&B, right?

Not even close. The versatile, pint-sized performer, the girl who used to hang tough with Tupac Shakur when they were students at the Baltimore School for the Arts, is a metal head. Her band, Wicked Wisdom, has just released its self-titled debut. Lyrically intense, musically extreme, the album is Pinkett Smith's serious foray into heavy metal, a genre that isn't exactly teeming with black female artists.

"I've always loved heavy metal and the freedom in it," says the performer, calling from a promotional stop in Denver. "My uncle introduced me to it when I was young: I'm talking Black Sabbath, I'm talking Pink Floyd, Queen. I've always been a lover of heavy music, heavy funk, like Chaka Khan, Prince, Graham Central Station. But I come from a musically eclectic background. My aunt introduced me to Bob Marley. There was jazz, Coltrane, everything."

Last summer, Wicked Wisdom received wide exposure at Ozzfest, where the group played on the second stage. Before that stint, in 2004, the quintet was the opening act on the European leg of Britney Spears' Onyx Hotel tour. For about two years, Pinkett Smith and her four bandmates -- guitarist Pocket Honore, guitarist Cameron "Wirm" Graves, bassist Rio Lawrence and drummer Phillip "Fish" Fisher -- woodshedded their act in small clubs throughout the Midwest and along the West Coast before playing huge arenas and major festivals.

"The heavy metal scene is a particular scene where people take the music very seriously," says the actress, 34. "It has its challenges."

Because the quintet is fronted by a pretty Hollywood actress and because the band toured with a vapid pop tart like Spears, Wicked Wisdom is working hard to establish its credibility in the heavy metal community. So far, the reception has been mixed.

"Ozzfest was a little shaky in the first week," says guitarist Honore. "There was this big hype. But we were getting a lot of hate messages -- people yelling (stuff) from the barricades, throwing stuff. I don't want to say that race or anything like that was an issue. I don't know. It's just music, man."

Pinkett Smith realizes her celebrity helps and hinders the group.

"With me being established already, it makes it easier to get the word out about the album," the artist says. "But the celebrity aspect of it -- changing perceptions of who I am has been hard. This is just one aspect of me."

Pinkett Smith, though her vocals can be thin at times, manages to match the unrelenting energy of the music. She screams and chants the lyrics as the guitars and drums crash, burn and explode around her.

"I find that the music expresses a lot of different things, not just anger," Pinkett Smith says. "It's extreme. There's no gray area. Whatever emotion you choose to express in the music, it's gonna be intense."