DJ Rap: Learning Curve : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

As DJ Rap, Charissa Saverio has improbably flourished in a London club world that doesn't often embrace women as turntable studs. On her fascinating debut, she demonstrates a knack for threading pop melodies through dance tunes keyed to drum-and-bass and other culty dance styles. She achieves raw yet very workable fusions, although even Rap songs as catchy as "Bad Girl" and "Good to Be Alive" take a minute to register; they're dance-pop songs that pay no attention to the conventions of the genre. Yet dance-pop they are, and Rap is understandable in a way that, say, Beth Orton remains mysterious. She's an "Everyday Girl," as she outlines in one simmering song, confident that paradise is here on earth. (RS 813)

JAMES HUNTER