Miami Living Magazine features the best Miami has to offer. Click on any magazine below and enjoy. You can download our free app on iTunes. Ideal for iPad and iPhone users.
Issue link: https://digital.miamilivingmagazine.com/i/19123
PEOPLE “What Goes Around” DJ Rap Releases Her New Album Synthesis Words by Vanessa Pascale With her radiating energy and awe-inspiring talent, DJ Rap (Charissa Saverio) is the sort of woman you revel in being near. Not only because you will undoubtedly learn a thing or two from the talented artist, but hopefully some of her sparkling presence will rub off as well. A DJ, singer, songwriter, music producer and head of two indie record labels: Propa Talent (drum ‘n’ bass) and Impropa Talent (house), this petite, brown-eyed powerhouse is truly a force to be reckoned with. DJ Rap, significantly known for her djing skills / music producing and wide-ranging musical talent, wows again with her recently released album, Synthesis. An album she refers to as “smart pop,” it’s a “synthesis” of the music she loves (house & drum ‘n’ bass) with a style influenced by artists like Coldplay, Pink Floyd, NIN, and Mutemath. Synthesis is a follow- up to her 1999 record, Learning Curve. “I’ve done records in between, but this is the second actual real record with full songs. The other records are more like DJ compilations; strictly drum ‘n’ bass albums, house albums —all very underground dance,” explained DJ Rap. A lot of hard work and time went into producing this impressive album. “I wrote the next record and everyone kind of sat on it for two years. I forgot about it and I went back to djing. I ended up writing a bunch of songs and testing them out acoustically. I went and played piano for Francis Ford Coppola and went to Sir Richard Branson’s island to perform for him. I met some really influential people who heard the songs and thought they were good… I started thinking, maybe, 92 MIAMI LIVING onboard to help produce “because you lose a bit of perspective if you’re doing everything yourself.” The first producer didn’t work out, but the second producer, Chevy Bhorntus, worked out much better than anticipated— and ended up becoming her boyfriend. “Anyone stuck in a room for 16 hours a day for months and months and months, eventually you’re going to end up together,” she said with a smile. Once the album was finished, DJ Rap realized that she wanted to add a live element to it. “After all that effort, we decided to re-do the whole record with a band… so Chevy produced that whole version of it with me and it was much better.” Synthesis turned out beautifully. “It’s exactly what I want. It was such a labor of love to get it to Photo Credit: Larissa Underwood I should actually put this record down.” It’s been a long arduous road for Synthesis to get produced, partly due to DJ Rap’s hectic touring schedule, among other issues, that include her discovering that her agent-at-the-time had embezzled from her. This freed up some time for DJ Rap to write, while she took her former agent to court. “This record should have been called Blood, Sweat and fucking Tears, that’s what it should’ve been called,” she laughed. “Nothing is ever easy in my life. It looks like it is and it’s all gleaming and great. But it’s actually tsunami, after tsunami, after tsunami….” After self-producing the album, she realized that she wanted another person “Another reason for taking so long to write the record is that you have to wait for a lot of stuff to happen to you to make it interesting, otherwise you’re just writing about nothing.” the point where I was really happy with it,” beamed DJ Rap. She worked with the best of the best on Synthesis: Grammy- nominated mixer, Chris Woods (mixed the record), Andy Irvine (from Earth Wind & Fire) on bass, and Prescott Ellison on the drums. “These are all people who did it for really super cheap because they just loved the record and wanted to work on an