But it wasn’t until his New York arrival in 2004 that he truly found his calling: as soul singer and producer. His entrée into the gay downtown club scene was a smash, as he quickly befriended and began collaborating with its familiar talents— including Jonny McGovern a.k.a. the Gay Pimp and Michael Formika Jones. And now, three years after releasing his first album, How I Seem to Be on his own Jah Records, Joseph is in the midst of one seriously shining moment. He just released two videos—the soulful “Your Mine [sic]” on MySpace, and the frisky “Faggoty Attention” on Logo—and began an August residence at the Ritz Lounge. The premiere performance of that monthlong residency was abuzz with fans.

“Hey y’all!” he called out to them, an impressive mix of clubby gay boys (including nightlife impresario Daniel Nardicio) and straight African-American groupies who had crammed themselves into the banquette-lined back lounge at the new Restaurant Row hot spot. Joseph was backed by his own band, Elegant Children—Beyoncé percussionist Nikki Glaspie on drums, Amy Boules on keyboard and Aaron Bellamy on guitar—and kicked off his set with a retooled, hip-hoppy version of Sade’s “The Sweetest Taboo,” followed by his own amped-up soul material. The lanky, baby-faced singer—rocking white pants, black T-shirt, a thick rope chain and cocked black fedora—busted out with his low George Michael–esque sexiness, high-register sweetness and sassy raps. He looked thrilled to pieces.

“I love performing live,” Joseph says a few days before the show, chatting with TONY over iced coffees in a Hell’s Kitchen café. “I feel really lucky because I get to do all three things—perform, write and produce.”

Fine-tuning his skills at Berklee has helped him get plenty of paying gigs doing what he loves (and that’s a good thing, he explains, as his last pay-the-rent job—waiting tables at HK—was disastrous, with the owner telling him every day, “You’re the worst waiter I’ve ever seen!”). His writing chops have finally been taken seriously, as he recently snagged a publishing deal to write songs for other artists. He’s also signed with Columbia Records/Music with a Twist (which featured a track of his on the gay anthology Revolutions), and spends plenty of time in the studio perfecting his own style—“It’s real neosoul, R&B,” he says, “it’s not trying to be cute”— and has a second album in the works.

Joseph did venture into cutesy territory recently, though, thanks to the fun-lovin’ influence of his pal McGovern. After performing with McGovern’s collective, Team Pimp, and producing his recent Gays Gone Wild CD (featuring tracks like “Girl, I F*cked Yo’ Boyfriend” and “Bossy Bottom”), Joseph was encouraged to try his hand at tongue-in-cheek pop.

“Adam is amazing,” McGovern says of his “lil’ white hummingbird.” “He can do anything, from soul ballad to bitch track.”

He explains that Joseph was “very amused by my faggoty lyrics…and soon you could tell he was ready to add a bit of ‘wink’ into a track or two [of his own]. I had suggested we write him a song called ‘Faggoty Attention,’ about the kind of special attention a straight guy could enjoy from a wily and willing homo,” he continues, “and a couple weeks later he said, ‘I wrote it,’ and played me the song, which I flipped for!” The clever, high-energy video, shot mainly at Formika’s party at Ultra, is out-of-control, double-entendre fun.

“I figured if I was going to do something gay-themed, I’d just do it,” Joseph says. “I wasn’t going to try to be all cryptic.”

Adam Joseph performs Tuesdays at 11pm through Aug28 at the Ritz Lounge. His videos can be seen at youtube.com and logoonline.com.