| supply more details | |
| Name | DJ Rap |
|---|---|
| Birth Name | Charissa Saverio |
| Date of Birth | ? ... 1969 |
| Place of Birth | ? ..., Singapore |
| Measurements | |
| Bust | ? ... |
| Waist | ? ... |
| Hips | ? ... |
| Height | ? ... |
| Weight | ? ... |
Like us, you may have first encountered DJ Rap posing on a billboard advert for Caterpillar footwear circa 1992, with the legend "Jungleist" beneath her topless form (although her arms concealed her shame!). Like me, you may have thought "yeah right, a 'DJ' .. another model, more like". You'd be right and wrong at approximately the same time.. or at least in very quick succession. She is actually a DJ, but she does trade on her looks a fair bit - and in all fairness, there's plenty of trade to be had from them. She has since said of the Caterpillar advert that it "saved her life" and I can see what she means. Life as a working musician is hard, and as a female DJ in the world of Karl Cox, Paul Oakenfold and a million and one other tossers, the going must have been tough. In the era of the personality DJ, exposure is everything, and if you're going for exposure, you might as well be female, blonde, easy on the eyes and blessed with clevage that can stop traffic. Don't get us wrong, Rap is a long way from DJ Roxanne Dawn in terms of her using her looks. But she has landed a few jobs (Calvin Klein, Twix) where her looks were paramount. But if this gave her a foot in the door of the DJ fraternity, then more power to her.
Born Charissa Saverio to an Italian father and an Irish-Malaysian mother in Singapore, DJ RAP spent her childhood travelling the world - Indonesia, Malta and Africa were all home for a while. Her stepfather managed luxury hotels and she grew up living in the palatial surroundings of Raffles in Shangri La. As a child her two loves were playing piano and horse-riding. She'd practice the piano six hours a day and spend the rest of her time in the stables dreaming of being a pianist. When the family moved to Southampton, England in her early teens, she discovered pop music for the first time and after leaving school took time out to travel the world, backpacking through Greece, Turkey and Europe. She eventually returned to London and joined a legal firm, first as a secretary, then training to become a lawyer. Her life, for the first time in years, seemed to be following a normal, everyday course. It was from this bliss that Charissa morphed into DJ RAP. And as Charissa says of her alter ego: "She ditched her job, kicked out her difficult boyfriend and discovered raves."
Charissa has now released song-based albums, and has turned her hand to singing as well as DJ-ing. We applaud her versatility, but wonder if she will go the route of so many female artists who enter the mainstream only to find that they lose touch with what gave them their voice in the first place. Let's hope not.
Update: 2005
DJ Rap is still going, and from strength to strength by the looks of it. You can catch all the latest news at her official site. The intro page bears the legend: DJ, Songwriter & Artist, Actor. So while her model days might be behind her, she seems to be taking the route well-trodden by so many before her.
