Charissa Saverio, aka DJ Rap is the latest in our series of Chicks that Mix – some of the exceptional women of electronic, dance and experimental electronic music. 

DJ Rap has been voted Shejay’s #1 female DJ in the world. She owns, records for, runs and A&Rs two labels Proper Talent and Improper Talent. She’s a producer, recording artist and an actress.

She’s also worked with BT several times, contributing vocals to Giving Up The Ghost, and appearing in videos for his Never Gonna Come Back Down and Simply Being Loved. 

Rolling Stone Magazine gave her CD Learning Curve three and a half stars, saying “this is the record Madonna wanted to make.”

Learning Curve went on to sell over a million copies, bringing her total sales to over 3000,000 copies worldwide. Since Learning Curve, Saverio has focused more on DJ set CDs, including Touching Bass, a 2-CD set with drum and bass and breaks tracks.

DJ Rap has also written extensively about DJing professionally on her blog. Here are her tips on gear:

Decks: Although I still own the one and only pair of turntables I’ve ever bought, SL-1200’s the Pioneer CDJ-1000 or DVJ-1000 is my weapon of choice. I simply LOVE Pioneer. [yes I love vinyl, no I haven't abandoned it. but you try carrying 20 20lb. crates to Ibiza only to find the crates nicked when you get there!] So CD’s are what I spin. 

Mixer: Now, I’m really fussy about this shit. It HAS to be a Pioneer-800 for me.  I don’t care what anyone else says, it’s the best. For me the effects, are stellar. The Pioneer-600 sounded a little too woody and muffled, if you like, often there were feedback problems. But the 800 is crystal clear. I love the fact that you can mix and blend effortlessly without too much tuning concerns due to the filter effect.

As I travel with a VJ, if you ever get the chance, check out Pioneer’s new SVM 1000. [pioneerdj.com] I went to the warehouse and they let me at it, needless to say I got a little excited and wet my pants. I feel visuals are very important to a DJ show, but let’s take it one step at a time… we’ll get into that a bit later.

Monitors: In my home studio I use the M-Audio BX5’s and the 10-inch sub that goes with it.[m-audio.com] I find they are incredibly accurate and really translate well to the dancefloor. I also use a pair of NS-10’s which help me with what I call the “car radio mix test.” In other words, if it sounds good in my car, it sounds good anywhere. For my mains, when I’m writing and producing I just got a hold of a pair of VXT-8’s which have a MASSIVE sound. [krksys.com]

Headphones: I only ever use Sony-MDRV700DJ’s. They’re solid. And I haven’t gone deaf yet. [sonystyle.com]

Of course you don’t need these items exactly to start with as I realize we’re all on our own budgets, however, you’ll only need it once and you get what you pay for. In the long run you’ll pay more to replace things if you’re buying shit equipment. Trust me, been there, done that. 

So, if there’s anybody out there that still thinks that female DJs can’t keep up with the guys, DJ Rap has a message for you:

DJ Rap Releases:

• Intelligence (1995)
• Journeys Through the Land of Drum N Bass (1995)
• Learning Curve (1999)
• Propa Talent Classics, Volume 1 (2001)
• Touching Bass (2003)
• Bulletproof (2005)
• Up All Night (2006)
• A Propa History, Volume 1 (2008)
• Synthesis (2008)

It’s been awhile since we highlighted any Chicks That Mix.

There’s probably no better way to remedy that situation than drawing your attention to Little Boots‘ Victoria Hesketh.

Hesketh is the former lead singer with Dead Disco, and now she does her own electronic dance music as Little Boots.

“Little Boots is just me, Victoria,” says Hesketh. “Well, it’s the name for my music project. I write and play stuff and sing and DJ and remix and do covers…Whatever I can get my hands on really!”

And she does analog:

There’s a fully produced mix of this on her MySpace page, but this solo version has its own charms.

Check out her Moroder-esque single, Stuck On Repeat, below. You can also sign up for a free mixtape from Little Boots at her site.

Liz McLean Knight, aka Liz Revision, describes herself as “a multi-websited busybody, experimental electronic musician, and jewelry designer, with a love of all things technologically innovative and geek-chic.”

We found her site while checking out some dj-geek wear and were impressed. Knight’s got one of the coolest portfolios of projects that we’ve seen:

• Produces experimental / ambient electronic music as Quantazelle
• Founder and manager of subVariant Recordings
• Designer and owner of Zelle, a design company featuring jewelry and accessories, right, created from computer and electronic components.
• Manager of Fractalspin.com, an online store selling Zelle accessories, subVariant music, and other fashionably-geek gear. Check out their “Your beats are weak” shirts, and their electronic musician gear.
• Designer of the Electronic Musicians’ Emergency Adapters, an all-encompassing kit of adapters intended specifically for laptop-based and other electronic musicians. Looks like it would be a great idea to throw one of these in the back of your car, in case you show up at a gig without a crucial connector missing.
• Founder and editor-in-chief of Modsquare.com, which she calls “Chicago’s premiere online resource for experimental electronic music / IDM (intelligent dance music).” Unfortunately, their site got hacked – hopefully it will be back up soon.

In other words, if there’s something cool related to electronic music, she’s probably doing it.

You can get a taste of Liz Revision’s mixes below. She’s got more DJ mix MP3’s at her site, and you can also check out her podcast.

The latest in our series of Chicks That Mix is Viktoria Rebeka Kokalj, aka DJ Viktoria Rebeka. Originally from Croatia, Viktoria Rebeka is known for mixing house tracks, ranging from progressive house to electro-house.

She’s worked around the world, including Austria, Vienna, The Netherlands, Barcelona & Slovenia.

You can get a taste of Viktoria Rebeka’s work with the DJ mix below, or find out more about her at the Underground Connections site.

The latest DJ in our series of Chicks that Mix is producer, model and actress DJ Loli.

Loli has multiple intersecting careers, including acting in television and films, music and film production, modeling and DJing.

You can get a taste of Loli’s electro style with her free DJ mix, below, from Voodoo Radio.

Loli was born in the Ukraine, in the city Kiev. After she graduated from high school, she moved to England to study psychology and film history at Oxford Brookes University in the city of Oxford. There she pursued a year of university, after which she transferred herself into the London Institute of film Art in London.

Her career as a DJ started in a night club in Oxford called The Bridge, where she came up to the DJ, amazed with how bad the music was, and asked him what was the deal with that. He told her to get her CD’s and demonstrate “whats good”.The next week, she came back with a set of her music and soon she was on the decks.

In 4 years spent in London, she pursued her modeling, DJing, and hosting careers, appeared on several TV shows and gaining some notoreity. While her career seemed to be going well, she missed the sun and warm weather.

She moved to LA, was soon offered a residency at the Avalon night club in LA and has been touring the United States since. Recently, she’s performed in England, Israel, Australia, Ukraine, Russia, Brazil, Portugal and Japan. She’s working on her first CD.

DJ/producer Reid Speed began career in the New York City drum & bass underground in the nineties, when it was still a bit of a novelty for a woman to be DJing. She quickly built a reputation, though, in the word of drum and bass.

Since then, she’s toured the world spinning drum and bass, speed garage and 2-step, she’s released several mix CDs and been the house DJ for the Jamie Kennedy Experiment television show.

Check out her Filthy Nasty Breaks mix below for a taste of her work. She’s also got a collection of free MP3s at her site to introduce you to her work, including DJ mixes and original productions.

She bought turntables in early 1996, and began playing out less than a year later. By the summer of ‘97 she was a resident of rave promoters Stuck on Earth and the following year a member of the Direct Drive crew. At their numerous events she cut her teeth playing alongside some of the biggest & the best in the business.

At the same time Reid was serving as her college radio station’s RPM director and also working at drum & bass store Breakbeat Science. Capitalizing on their large and widespread customer base, her demos soon spread across the country, which led to her travelling to many new cities around the US and Puerto Rico, as well as Ireland, Canada, and Mexico.

She visited England that summer and developed a love for Speed Garage, which inspired her to throw her own events, pushing the music she had grown to love. This movement morphed into a love for many other genres from 2 step to nu skool breaks to house and beyond.

In 1998 she distributed her first speed garage/2 step/house tape and in 2000, Reid, DB and 4.0 Marketing came together to do a successful series of 2 step events, including the first 2 step showcase at the 2000 Winter Music Conference.

Reid had also begun working on original production, releasing “SIMPLOT” with FS on Jungle Sky, and assisting Datcyde with a remix of NYC jungle anthem “Naughty Ride” featuring MC Blaise, which was released on Taciturn.

In 2001, after thirteen self released mix tapes and one animated short movie for Showtime’s Shonext channel, her debut mix CD Resonance was released by Breakbeat Science. In support of the release, a 40 date tour sponsored by Mixer magazine introduced her sound to an even wider audience. After wrapping that tour, Reid came home to NYC only to do another tour, this time with Madhattan breakbeat kings Ming & FS. They did 28 dates in 30 days across America in an RV. Warming the crowd up for an average of 3 hours a night, Reid developed her signature genre-busting style for the increasingly larger audiences.

After that month on the bus Reid was primed for a massive change. She decided to move to Los Angeles. She started Rude Sound, a party showcasing 2 step and nu skool breaks. In the summer of 2003, Breakbeat Science came calling for their second mix, entitled Life After Dark . Inspired by 9/11 and the decline of the NYC scene (no thanks to Mr Giuliani, Mr Bloomberg, or the darkness pervading the drum & bass scene at the time).

During that summer, Reid also recieved a call from a TV show looking for a special DJ to provide on-air flavor to the show. After competing against hundreds of male scratch/hip hop DJs, Reid was chosen by Jamie Kennedy to play drum & bass for one season on his show, the Jamie Kennedy Experiment which aired on the WB network. She went on to appear as the DJ in an episode of Spike TV’s MDN.

After completing the tour for Life After Dark in late 2004, Ms Speed got back to business with production of original tracks. Her & Sense’s track Bring it Up was recently featured on Richard Vission/ Swedish Egil’s Power Tools.

Images: DogsOnAcid, Maven of Mekka

The latest DJ in our series of Chicks that Mix is 23-year-old Montreal native Vivie-Ann.

Vivie-Ann says her sets cover everything house with a hint of ping or pong – anything that makes hands fly in the air. When asked to describe her sound, Vivie-Ann says it’s “bump in the night with a little dynamite,” adding that her sets could also be called “morally immoral.”

A six-year student of conservatory piano and a graduate of McGill University’s computer science program, she currently holds residencies at Palladium in Acapulco, Hulala in Rome Mokai in Miami, and last year in Ibiza @ Penelope.

Vivie-Ann released her first major remix release in 2006, an amped-up version of Kobbe & Austin Leed’s Bodyshaker. Vivie-Ann is now concentrating on production with her partner, DJ Kevin Barnett for their DJ collective, 02music, and the launch of their new DJ-inclined clothing line, ADD (Addicted DJ Designs).

You can preview Vivie-Ann’s work below, or download free MP3 mixes at her management site.

Dj Anastasia was born in Kiev, Ukraine in 1985. Since she was a child, she has loved music, dancing, playing piano and guitar.

When she was 16, Anastasia fell in love with electronic music and made her first attempts to mix vinyl.

Since then, DJ Anastasia has played with Felix da Housecat; DJ Diamond, Dj Dan, Deep Dish, Tiest and others.

Anastasia DJs regularly in clubs in the Ukraine. She also had played clubs in Milan, Madrid Allegoria, Zenith, Athens Venue, island Miconos Space (Greece), Georgia FTV and Night Office, Moscow and Ibiza Privilege.

You can get a taste of DJ Anastasia with her house music dj mix, below.

Amber Nixon is a San Francisco-based techno and tech-house DJ and producer with a taste for driving beats and aggressively risky mixing.

Aggressive and risky is good.

Her unique approach to mixing is featured on her three CD releases, Live with Friends and Family (2004), Gold (2002), and CityDweller (2001), and her latest track, Your Love, is featured on the CD Altered Evidence (2004).

In 2003, Amber co-founded NorCal DJ and Music Production Academy in San Francisco, where she develops and instructs DJ courses. She is also a recurring guest lecturer for the UCLA Graduate School of Musicology course on The History of Electronic Music.

Amber is a resident with the San Francisco branch of Sister USA, a cross-genre, all-female DJ collective. Amber and her projects have been featured in Remix Magazine (US), XLR8R (US), Etc. Magazine (US), Karma Magazine (US), Szene (Germany), the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine and numerous online publications.

You can preview Amber’s aggressive and risky mixing style with her grinding, feverish acid trance mix, CityDweller. Amber’s got more mix MP3s at her site, along with her performance schedule.

Yeow! What’s not to like about DJ Diamond?

She’s an international DJ, she’s Hawaiian and she’s been featured in Playboy, Maxim, and FHM. She’s even got a degree in sports medicine, in case you get whiplash turning your neck when she catches your eye.

She’s DJ’d from South Africa to China to Russia to South America, delivering mixes of electro, house and progressive to hard trance music. In between touring, she’s in the studio working on original productions.

You can get a taste of DJ Diamond’s sound with her Shine mix, below. More MP3s & videos are available at the DJ Diamond site.