House music innovator DJ Colette was born Colette Marino in Chicago in 1975 -- at the age of nine, she began studying classical vocal performance, later studying painting and music at the Windy City institution Lane Tech. In 1993 she began collaborating with Chicago house mainstay Lego, adding vocals to some of his mixes and occasionally to his live sets; while a student at DePaul University, Marino next attempted singing over karaoke tracks, improvising lyrics and melodies and recording the end result. Her dorm room experiments caught the attention of local producers includin...