It's a shame how many women in dancehall get exploited as sex objects. But 24-year-old Lady Saw never stumbled into that trap. Rather, she jumped in headfirst, lustily turning the tables on bedroom bullies. "A lot of women complain, `It's really hard for me,' " she says in a quiet, considerate voice. "But I don't see why. Because I'm determined and I'm good. I'll always be Jamaica's No. 1 and America's No. 1 DJ. I'm the empress of the land."

When Saw gets raw, as on her sure-shot crowd pleaser "Stab Out the Meat," she can stand with any X-rated DJ from General Echo to Yellowman to Shabba. Slackness is hardly her only mode, but her sexual frankness does get results. Check out Saw's intimidating cover photo on her new album Give Me the Reason (V.P. Records): She's sheathed head-to-toe in black leather, rocking a bald dome and a riding crop!

Offstage, though, Lady Saw still sometimes sounds like the innocent country girl from the parish of St. Mary's who used to stand outside the dancehall gate, listening to Youthman Promotion sound when it passed through her area. Back then, the star attraction was Tenor Saw (killed in his prime, but best remembered for the extra-classic anthem "Ring the Alarm"), whose ghostly, warbling voice the young Lady Saw would emulate at hometown dances, eventually moving beyond imitation to origination.

"There was one time when the big sound Stereo One with Lieutenant Stitchie came to my parish," she recalls. "They was doing their ting, and I went up there and I said"-she lowers her voice to a near whisper-" `Beg you a talk on the mike.' And them nah pay me no mind until a guy from my area said, `Give her a talk, she bad.' When I started deejaying, the whole place was getting really hot."

After slapping Wickerman and Captain Barkey in head-to-head competition, the young unknown came up against Stitchie, then one of the island's top performers. "After he did his lyrics, he was walking away. I said, `No, no, you ain't going nowhere, man. Are you 'fraid or dead?' "

It didn't take long for word to spread that a girl from country had mashed up three veteran DJs. Saw soon went to Kingston, where she began a recording career in earnest. For the past three years, she has ranked as reggae's top female DJ, all the while refusing to be typecast as a dancehall artist. Her new album includes credible country and gospel-y singing-even a slightly cheesy house track-and she's dabbled in soca and rap as well. But these talents are all eclipsed by the damage she does in raggamuffin mode. "When I'm going onstage, is no fool-fool thing," she proclaims. "I don't care about people who love to talk negative about me being lewd. I want to know if I see you jumping and screaming."