POP MUSIC Mr. Melting Pot Using his Latino and African American heritage as a springboard to multicultural music, singer Jon Secada is realizing his crossover dreams while promoting integration `because that's what America is about': [Home Edition]

The business of being Jon Secada is being conducted today on Stage 14 at NBC's Burbank studios, where the 32-year-old Afro Cuban American singer is taping "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

After that, Secada-who blasted out of nowhere in 1992 with a debut album that has sold 6 million worldwide and a Grammy-winning Spanish-language counterpart that has sold another 400,000-will perform the hit single from his new album, "Heart, Soul & a Voice," for the NBC late-night show "Friday Night." After that, there's a "meet and greet" with fans who won a "Meet Jon Secada" contest.

After that, there are pictures to be taken, grateful-sounding thanks to be murmured, flesh to be pressed.

After that . . . well, after that, Jon Secada-handsome, soft-spoken, genial Jon Secada-would be forgiven for bouncing off the walls in his room at Le Parc Hotel.

Not that that's likely.

"I'm a workaholic," Secada says with a shrug.

"He never complains," says his agent, Jorge Pinos.

"He sings from the heart," says his manager, producer and mentor, Emilio Estefan.

The business of being Jon Secada is especially big business because Secada-as pop singer, songwriter and performer-appeals both to the U.S. mainstream pop audience and the nation's estimated 22 million Latinos.

"Spanish-speaking people are probably going to be the biggest-growing market in the States," says Estefan, a Cuban immigrant (like Secada) whose other major client, wife Gloria Estefan, has already carved out a lucrative English-Spanish singing career.

While Secada's first album, the 1992 "Jon Secada," buoyed by the huge hit "Just Another Day," scored with mainstream Anglo audiences, the Spanish-language counterpart, "Otro Dia Mas Sin Verte," spawned four No. 1 singles on Billboard's Latin chart and bagged a Grammy for best Latin pop album.

Secada also walked away with best male artist, best new artist and best album in the pop category at last year's Premio Lo Nuestro a La Musica Latina, the prestigious Latin equivalent to the Grammys. What's more, a sizable number of English-speaking Anglos appear to have bought "Otro Dia Mas."

"To this day," Secada says, "Anglos tell me that they might not understand what I'm singing, but there's immediately more passion in the Spanish versions of the songs."

The upshot of all this cross-cultural pollination:...