She didn’t win NBC’s youngster version of American Idol, but that hasn’t stopped this 13-year-old suburbanite from recruiting some of the same writer-producers who nurtured Aaliyah into an alluring icon and making her own grab for stardom. Over the skipping New Jack guitars of “Happy Song” and “City Lights,” she’s wise: Staying within her vocal range and reveling in her own adolescent innocence, she strikes a charming pop pose. Elsewhere, though, she plays dress-up, primping herself into an R&B seductress, riding hip-twisting beats and lyrics about burning desire. Trouble is, JoJo is neither refined nor old enough to pull it off beyond a suitable Idol-esque facsimile. On these songs, it’s as though she’s vamping in her mother’s size 9 stilettos — silly and plodding.

DOWNLOAD THIS “City Lights”