Dilana

Dilana Robichaux
Photo Credit Jewels Satterfield.
Background information
Birth name	Dilana Jansen van Vuuren
Also known as	Dilana Smith
Born	(1972-08-10) 10 August 1972 (age 44) Johannesburg, South Africa
Genres	Hard rock, Alternative rock
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter, actress
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Labels	(2000) Rusty Harp (2006 – Present)
Associated acts	Adam Lambert, Adrian Young, Allison Iraheta, Gilby Clarke, Mick Mars, L.A. Guns
Website	Dilana's Official Website

Dilana Robichaux (born 10 August 1972) is a South African singer, songwriter, and performer who lives in Los Angeles, California. She is best known as the runner-up contestant on the CBS reality television show Rock Star: Supernova. She was the lead singer for Tracii Guns' version of L.A. Guns for a brief period in 2011.

Dilana Jansen van Vuuren was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on 10 August 1972. Her surname changed to Smith when she was about two years old, when her mother married her stepfather, and he adopted her. Dilana used singing as an escape from an unpleasant home scene, participating in school choir competitions and festivals, as well as church choir and fondue parties.

When the opportunity presented itself, Dilana dropped everything and started performing full-time, from a travelling duo, to a mixture of bands in South Africa and The Netherlands. Moving to the Netherlands, she formed her own band, focusing more on original works and becoming one of the country's highest paid live performers.

Recording her first album Wonderfool in 2000 led to four music videos, five singles and well over 200 gigs. She also sang the title tracks for two major motion pictures and performed in a festival in Belgium supporting Joe Cocker and Stuff, K's Choice and Heather Nova to a crowd of more than 100,000 people. Dilana also performed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, with Dutch performers.

Dilana was one of the finalists on the CBS reality television show of season two of Rock Star, where she finished runner-up to Lukas Rossi. The show is a competition in which the band chooses a lead singer from a group of contestants. Although Dilana received the most consistent praise for her performances of all the contestants, she came under fire from fans, her competition, and from Rock Star Supernova because of comments she made during a staged press conference, in which she was forthcoming with her opinion of her competitors. Although she apologised repeatedly for her remarks afterwards, it appears that her first "bottom three" appearance was a result of this controversy. The controversy seemed to die down by the end of the program; on the final night of voting, she was said to have received the highest number of votes at least at one point during the evening, and ended up with the second highest number overall. After the show, Gilby Clarke revealed that Lukas Rossi defeated Dilana because "he made [their] music sound more like a band, whereas Dilana sounded like a singer, with Rock Star Supernova backing her."