So is 8-year-old daughter Emily, who watches intently from atop a speaker, giggling and whispering with publicists, her nanny, her parents' longtime bodyguard. "Yessss," she hisses, as Mom launches into one of Emily's favorite songs from Unwrapped, the star's first recording after three years spent mostly at home with her daughter.

Unwrapped, in stores Sept. 23, is very much the result of Estefan's time off, written in-between taking her daughter to school and playdates, and during getaways to a beach house the couple owns up the coast.

"I never had the opportunity to write almost all the songs before," Gloria says, sitting cross-legged on a couch after hours of concert taping and television interviews in two languages. "It's more me because of that.

"It's an evolution. It's where I'm very happy right at this moment."

Estefan, after more than 20 years of being the star at the front of the band, is truly confident about making her own statement.

Unwrapped is meant to be her most personal and revealing album ever. Even her body gets turned into a medium of communication. The cover art, by Miami artist Carlos Betancourt, uses her painted stomach as the front, while the back cover shows her back, with the scar from her near-fatal 1990 accident, painted with song titles. It's the visual equivalent of a recording that Estefan says came from deep within her.

"If you were to write from inside your body it would look backwards on your skin," she says.

At 46, she is going fully public as a grown-up. Unwrapped is the result of three years off to recharge and be with Emily, a long run of the kind of family and private time she hadn't enjoyed for over 20 years. She wrote almost all the songs, many inspired by her family -- one for Emily, another for husband Emilio, and another for her long-dead father -- while son Nayib produced a home movie portrait on DVD.

It fits neither the sparky crossover diva mode that made her famous with American audiences, nor the Latin traditions of her Spanish albums like 1993's Mi Tierra and 1995's Abriendo Puertas. Unwrapped is reflective, soulful, filled with unexpected instrumentation, and the spirit of 1970s singer-songwriters like Carole King and James Taylor to whom a teenage Estefan strummed along in her bedroom as she learned to play guitar.

Call it her bid to be taken seriously not just as a star, but as an artist and songwriter. A way to bring her public persona closer to the private one of a two-time mom in her mid-40s who has done her time in the entertainment trenches.

Estefan says it's a natural expression of who she is now. "At this point in my life I really feel that I'm very open to accepting any thought I might have and putting it out there," she says. "And it's the first time that I've had the time. I wanted to have something new to say, so I waited quite a while."

Though she won't admit to burnout, in 2000 she says she opted out of a planned world tour. 'I said, 'Do I really want to do this?' Then I thought, 'What I really want to do is stay home and enjoy my life.' A lot of things came together and I decided to stop. And then I just liked it more and more."

The choice could be seen as a necessary career move for an older artist carving out a place for herself in an era when ever-younger pop stars are as evanescent as the trends that wash away every few months. But it's also a risky one. Her biggest-selling English-language albums have been pure pop, the 1994 covers collection Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me and 1991's Into the Light, which sold 1.7 and 1.8 million, respectively.

But she hasn't had a major English-language hit -- or a Latin one -- in some time. The mainstream audiences that have her pegged as a party-happy, Latin-flavored dance artist may not accept the thoughtful lyrics and unusual fusion of Unwrapped. And with 14 of the 18 songs in English, it'll be a stretch for Latino audiences who know her more lyrical and musically textured side.

The first single, Hoy/Wrapped, written by Peruvian singer-songwriter Gian Marco (Estefan wrote the English lyrics) features Estefan in Peru's spectacular and legendary Machu Pichu, with Andean folk dances and images of mysterious Indian legends -- not exactly glitzy pop material.

'If you were an American you'd associate Gloria Estefan with 'C'mon everybody do that conga,' " says Agustin Gurza, Latin music critic for the Los Angeles Times. "It was good for her commercially but it did peg her as this Latin spitfire. Latinos because of the Spanish albums can see her with more dimensions. But I think many American listeners, once they latch onto a stereotype, don't want to give it up.

"She has a challenge if she wants to switch gears now, but it would be for anybody. Pop music fans aren't ready for a mature anybody -- it's a chew 'em up and spit 'em out industry."

Co-producer Sebastian Krys, a prominent and longtime Estefan collaborator, suggested to her that this was a pivotal chance to change her image. 'Sebastian said, 'I don't think there is yet a seminal album for you in English like Mi Tierra was in Spanish,'" Estefan says.

"This is a big step -- people expect her to just do congas," says husband Emilio Estefan during a listening session at his Crescent Moon Studios.

Gloria says she's not trying to compete with the Christina Aguileras of the world. "This is my 23rd album. It's not like I'm this fresh thing coming out," she says. "Kids' attention span for personalities is very short. I feel bad sometimes for the artists of today because they've got such a hard time to develop and grow. It's next-next-next, new-new-new.

"But you're either older or you're dead. I'll take older any day."

Gloria co-produced the record with Krys and some help from her husband. Instead of the usual method of musicians recording separate tracks, Unwrapped was recorded live in just three weeks, with an unusual core group that included African drummer Manu Katache, who has worked with Sting and Peter Gabriel, and Carlos Vives' bassist Luis Angel Pastor.

"There's something you get performing live with musicians that you're never going to get no matter how good a programmer is," Estefan says.

The idiosyncratic mix of instruments includes Andean pan pipes and pedal steel guitar, as well as the '60s sounds of the Mellotron and the Hammond B3 organ. The result is a warm, indefinable fusion, folksy and personal, tailored to the personal nature of the songs.

"The idea was to get back to her as a songwriter," says Krys. "To interpret pop songs in a nontraditional, non-pop way."

There are two surprising guests. One is Stevie Wonder, who contributes background vocals (with a shouted "!te quiero, baby!") and harmonica on the soulful Into You.

The other is Chrissie Hynde, with whom Estefan hit it off when the two sang together on a TV special last year, and found they were both Karen Carpenter fans. Hynde sings on One Name, which is inspired by a homeless man Estefan used to see while driving Emily to school. "I would see him washing his clothes under the I-395, trying to have a life under this bridge. One Name is about how on the outside we may seem so different, but inside we all need the same things."

Several songs are directly inspired by her family time. You is a no-holds-barred love song for Emily. 'Emily asked me, 'What are you writing?' and I said, 'As a matter of fact I'm writing a song for you -- that's why it's called You.' And she said, 'But people are going to think it's for them.'"

Estefan throws back her head and laughs. "She's too much. That song just poured out of me."

Another song, Famous, deals directly with the lure and price of celebrity, with lines like, "Throws me then shows me that I'm justified/Measure my worth then decide I'm not what they need."

But even as Estefan prepares to set out on another round of concerts and publicity marathons, she insists that it's not what keeps her going.

"You may not believe it. But I have a very clear picture of what fame is," Estefan says.

The Miami Sound Machine first became successful in Latin America in the early 1980s, while in their hometown they were just one more band that played weddings and banquets.

"We used to do stadiums in Latin America and then come back and play a wedding with 200 people. So I know you can be famous for one second and the next it's like 'who?' The greatest happiness I derive comes from my relationships -- my family, my kids, my husband, my friends. I know the parts that are great and the parts that are bull.

"At a certain point in the day I want to be alone with my kid. Because those are the moments you grasp that are your ow

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