At 19 years old, Canadian-gone-global pop singer Justin Nozuka, isn't rushing to grow up. Just when we've grown accustomed to teens whose talent, exposure, makeup, fashion or extra-curricular antics belie their young ages, there comes along a young man who's wary of adulthood.

And he's cautious for all the right reasons, which — don't tell him this — makes him poised to be the adult those other kids aren't.

Nozuka, who performs tonight at Pipeline Cafe, could be one of those old souls stuck in a young body if it weren't for his insistence on being so guilelessly honest. The honesty, which is delivered in a low-timbered string of stream-of-consciousness utterances accented by Nozuka's frequent use of the words "cool" and "man," comes quickly and often. It punctuates his child-likeness, a trait he's afraid he might be losing.

He'd be stoked (yes, "stoked") to know that from here — that is, from this end of the telephone line — he comes off as all wide-eyed and full of of wonder. There's no innocence lost as far as anyone else can tell.

REFRESHING HONESTY

But what of the admissions? What do we make of the kind of honesty that leads to us knowing that Nozuka's folksy guitar riffs might not be the result of a lifetime of listening to under-the-radar music that calls itself "organic"? When Nozuka tells us — easily and unashamedly — that he only just discovered Radiohead ... whoa!

Can this kid be for real?

He's so real that it's impossible to hold his ignorance of indie and alternative music (not to mention anything older than a 2002 Top 40 chart) against him. Plus, the more important question is this: How does a kid raised on Usher, Justin Timberlake and 50 Cent know how to turn out brainy reverie like his current hit "After Tonight"? And why would he want to?

The answer: Because if ever there was a guy with songwriting in his fiber, it's Nozuka. He may not be Dylan or Springsteen or Costello, but he's naive enough not to hold himself to that standard, and guess what? It works. Because what the kid-who-knew-no-alternative-music offers the world is an alternative, and he does it without pretense.

All of that makes him sound self-aware and super evolved, but Nozuka doesn't see himself that way. He just happens to have a voice for soul music, the fingers to jam on a six-string and a mind for a good daydream.

It's no wonder then that it was a Jack Johnson song that distracted Nozuka from his usual top-40 fare.

"I had only been listening to mainstream music for most of my life. It was all I knew. When I was about 15, I heard Jack Johnson and he opened me up to a new world," said Nozuka. "That's when I started listening to people like Ben Harper and Bon Iver and others. Being around people who are in the scene — people who know what's real — also exposes me to new music, but it was the Jack Johnson thing that started it. I just ate it up."

That's not to say that he's Justin, the Jack protege. Nozuka's first album, "Holly," which he named for his mom and was released two years ago, doesn't sound anything like a Johnson album. It's all Justin — dreamy, youthful, searching — and, for someone whose influences might have included Rihanna, of umbrella-ella-ella lyrical fame, Nozuka is proving to be quite the songwriter:

Change my name and move to Mexico

Dye my hair red and get surgery on my nose

Buy a small condo

Stay low in Mexico

Don't it sound so sweet

Get a wife and raise a family

Start my own limousine company

Stay low in Mexico

And they go!

NATURAL STORYTELLER

Nozuka will tell you: He's a storyteller. He feels something — loneliness, desperation, guilt, glee, contentment — but rather than put himself in the center of the emotional storm, he passes the drama on to characters who exist first in his head and then later in his music. A songwriting tool that has been around for ages, but if you tell him he's following the lead of the great storytellers like Dolly Parton or Tom Petty or Paul Simon, he might agree, but only because he doesn't really know about all that — songwriting tools and stuff.

"When I wrote the album, I was so in my own bubble," said Nozuka, audibly contemplating his songwriting style as if it was the first time he'd ever really given it any thought. "I really had no idea what anyone else was doing. I was writing what I thought was right, you know? I never actually made a conscious decision to write like this. It was sort of just a natural thing. Storytelling is in my nature, I guess."

He's right. It must be innate. How else does someone turn out an album like "Holly" with nothing to go on but R&B and daydreams? Add to those a guy who's scared the world will change him, and what you're left with is music that has the unimposing pop appeal of Jack Johnson and Jason Mraz and the soul of unspoiled youth.

"I think the best thing is to be like a child: honest. There's so much pressure to grow up and leave everything behind, but I really feel like there's no point in losing all that," said Nozuka. "And to be honest with you, lately I've been sort of out of it. I can already feel the change. It's business now."

STAYING GROUNDED

So what of growing up, then? What about that big bad world that snuffs out wonder? It's only a matter of time before it gets him, too.

"I know! I think that's why a lot of artists do drugs, you know? To get back to the place where they can be creative," said Nozuka, chuckling.

"I really hope it doesn't come to that!" (Pause.) "I don't think it will," he decided. "I have family and friends to keep me grounded and I'm ready to move on."

Musically, that is. Though his debut album is only now getting its fair share of airplay in the United States, Nozuka has been a rising star in Canada and Europe for a couple of years.

"I've been working on this album for about two years now, so I'm hungry to record again," Nozuka said. "I've grown so much as an artist in the last two years. I've evolved a lot as a musician, and there's just a lot more that I want to do. I have more of a vision of what I want my music to be like and what I want to say through my music."

One last question: "If you could collaborate with any musician, dead or alive, who would it be?"

Nozuka: "Bill Withers. I think we'd click."