Yuna Is A Lawyer?..

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Remember that line in “Hook,’’ where Robin Williams played Peter Pan and told one of the Lost Boys, “Don’t mess with me! I’m a LAWYER!’’?

Well, don’t mess with Yuna, the Malaysian pop singer who’s coming to Cleveland for a show at Case Western Reserve University’s The Spot on Thursday, Feb. 13. You see, she’s a lawyer as well as one of the fastest rising singers on the Verve roster.

The show, by the way, is closed to the public, and open only to Case students and faculty. “I never got into being a lawyer,’’ Yuna said in a call from a tour stop in Chicago. “My final year in law school, I was already an artist in Malaysia, doing recordings and performing. “So when I graduated, it was kind of natural for me to get into music because I was already doing it,’’ she said. “Maybe one day, when I’m bored with making music, I’ll try it again.’’

But before she decides whether she has the writ stuff (sorry … but not much), it looks as though the 27-year-old is going to give fans a chance to judge her as a singer-songwriter. Yuna already has eight Music Industry Awards, the Malaysian equivalent of the Grammys, including best pop song and song of the year for a tune she wrote and performed called “Lelaki.’’. Her newest album, “Nocturnal,’’ is all in English, and features a solid collection of pop songs that let her show off her songwriting talent as well as her voice.

“If I wasn’t into songwriting, I wouldn’t be crazy about being a singer,’’ said Yuna, who has called Los Angeles home for three years now. “For me personally, the most fun part is being able to create your own music, to create your own project. When I found out I could write, I didn’t stop,’’ she said.

If it’s true that practice makes perfect, “Nocturnal’’ is full of evidence that she’s been practicing that songwriting craft a lot.

“The writing process for me extends from a line. Sometimes it comes from that, sometimes it comes from the music. The song I have called ‘I Wanna Go,’ the hook from that would be in my head for weeks. It’s up for me to build it into a song’’ she said.

The construction process shows up in “Nocturnal,’’ with its heavy reliance on percussion, both vocally and instrumentally, in songs like “Mountains’’ and especially “Lights and Camera.’’

“This is something I’ve always wanted to do,’’ Yuna said. “I wanted to work with all different percussion, a lot of Malaysian-style percussion, a lot of African. I wanted to make it pop at the same time, so I guess you could say it’s my style,’’ she said.

And though English is her second language, she said it’s her first language when it comes to writing.

“I think in English,’’ she said. “I grew up listening to a lot of English music.’’

That being said, she DOES sometimes write in her native tongue. And that creates problems of its own.

“It’s two very different languages, the grammar, the words, the syntax,’’ she said. “When I have a Malay song, my management would sometimes say, ‘This is a cool song; you should translate it.’ Most of the time, it’s 100 percent impossible to do that,’’ Yuna said. “The meaning would be different and the message would be distorted. People couldn’t embrace the beauty of the song.’’

And don’t try to talk her into it. As she sings in the song, “Escape,’’ “No one’s going to stop me from doing what I love.’’

Besides, do you really want to mess with a lawyer?

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