Dessa

Interviewed by Chris Mink

Dessa is the author of Spiral Bound (2009), as well as the writer, rapper, and singer of A Badly Broken Code (2010) and Castor, The Twin (2011). She holds a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Minnesota and currently teaches at the Institute of Production and Recording and the McNally Smith College of Music. She belongs to the rap collective Doomtree. 

Q: What was it like growing up in Minneapolis? The city is known for its support of the arts. Were you a part of that artistic community at a young age? Can one grow up in a city like Minneapolis and not be influenced by that culture?

A: As a teenager, I was something of a loner, which limited my awareness of the arts scene here. I was studious, melancholy, and I spent a lot of time writing pretty lousy poems. It wasn’t until later that I started regularly attending shows and becoming familiar with the musicians, writers, and venues that make this city art-centric. To the extent that it’s possible to grow up in Minneapolis and remain totally oblivious to the arts culture here, I think I did a pretty bang-up job.

Q: What were your early musical and literary influences? Do they remain your strongest influences today? Do you often return to them?

A: I once heard a writer say in an interview that artists don’t very often know who influenced them most. And if we do, we’re not likely to cite them. Instead, we list the current work we like or the stuff that makes us seem smart, cool, and discerning. I believe that. I can tell you I like David Foster Wallace and Philip Glass—and I do. But I’d bet that my mother’s insistence that her children speak well was a more fundamental influence than any literary figure I admire.

Q: You were a technical writer for a medical manufacturer. You’re now a published poet, fiction writer, non-fiction writer, hip-hop emcee, soul singer (please stop me if I’m forgetting something). Can you talk a little about process? Is it different when you’re working on a poem or a story, a verse as an emcee versus the chorus of a ballad? Does any part of the medical writing enter into the creative process of these others? Does the process involved in those creative endeavors overlap, or work symbiotically?

A: Almost everything I do stems from the same wellspring of a love for language. I don’t know why language is so important to me, but I know it has been a passion since I was very little. Sometimes as a girl on the school bus, I would spend the ride home trying to draft dictionary-style definitions in my head. “Bully. n a person who intentionally demeans someone else, usually of lesser standing, for amusement or personal gain.” For me, the most satisfying moments in writing are about precision and innovation: finding the perfect way to describe a new idea, or a new way to describe an old one. Prose tends to be a little more cerebral—I get a higher word count when I’m writing an essay than I do when I’m writing a rap song, so I have more space to explore the nuances of subtext and re-emerging themes. I’ll often edit and re-edit prose, usually writing late at night. With songwriting, I think it’s good to have many short ideas—lines that can be appreciated even by someone who tuned in halfway through the song. To write lyrics, I tend to loop the music over and over again, until I’ve written enough scraps to allow me to piece together a whole tune. 

Q: What did you write first: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, lyrics?

A: If you don’t count rhyming grade-school poetry, I wrote prose first. Then slam poetry. Then lyrics.

Q: You’ve done spoken-word, and participated in poetry slams. Were your first poems slam pieces? How does that public aspect factor into the process of creation, meaning, when you’re writing are you thinking consciously of the performance? Are you vocalizing before putting it down?

A: The first poems I wrote as an adult were for slam competitions. I think most performers probably voice their work before writing it down—that’s the way the work is consumed, so that’s how it ought to be crafted and revised. Many great performers never commit it to page at all.

Q: Even with so many talented women writers/performers/artists out there, we must still acknowledge the patriarchy that exists within our culture; it has always been a part of the hip-hop and literary communities. As the only female member of Doomtree, and a published author, do you find the challenges in both worlds to be similar? Do you navigate them the same way?

A: Within Doomtree, I encounter zero resistance due to the fact that I’m a woman. Those dudes are my friends, my co-workers, my teammates, my fam. I do get some skepticism about being an emcee when I’m communicating with other people in the industry, but I figure that’s best countered by handing them a CD or inviting them to check out a performance. I think you could spend your whole life trying to prove yourself to the disbelievers. I aim to let the music speak for itself and let the critics say what they will.

Q: Soul music and hip-hop are certainly intertwined. You perform both. In interviews I’ve heard members of Doomtree all mention a heavy punk influence. Hip-hop and punk seems to many to be an odd pairing. It’s not as if it’s never been done or acknowledged. From my childhood, Public Enemy and Beastie Boys certainly come to mind as hip-hop acts that mirrored punk sensibilities. But do you think this kind of hybridity, those more non-traditional pairings are becoming more common or even the status quo? If so, what effect do you think that will have on the music? And are those sort of non-traditional pairings happening within genres of literature?

A: I know it sounds like an evasion, but I am the worst at genres. I’m always guessing wrong (Wait, I thought this was just mellow indie stuff, what the hell is chillwave?) I don’t have any talent for recognizing those stylistic distinctions, so I just tuned the discussion out—wasn’t contributing much anyway. Sometimes it feels right to rap, sometimes it feels right to sing. To me it seems weird that delivering the same line, over the same beat, would totally change the genre designation. I like the question ‘Is it good?’ a lot more than ‘What’s it called?’

Q: What are you listening to right now? What are you reading?

A: I’m listening this afternoon to M83. Everybody says I’ll like it. Too soon to tell. I’m reading The Best American Short Stories, the 2011 collection.

Q: Your book Spiral Bound was published in 2009, four years after the False Hopes EP, not to mention other tracks on which you performed as guest emcee during that time. One year later you released your solo, A Badly Broken Code (amazing, btw). Now there’s Castor, The Twin. My first question is, do you ever sleep? Do you find that people come to the book because of your music, or do they discover your music by way of the book? Are the fan bases different?

A: Ha! I’m not a great sleeper, but I want to be. I hate being tired, but find it hard to get to bed before 2 AM. My music definitely has a higher profile than any of my writing, but I’ve been really fortunate, and a little surprised, to find that a lot of people are willing to buy a book at a rap show.

Q: What’s next for you? Studio? Writing desk? Performance in Tallahassee? Please say all three. 

A: Doomtree releases a record called No Kings this winter. It’s a beast of a project and we all contributed to it. We’ll be touring hard to support the disc and though I can’t promise we’ll be in Tallahassee, I bet we’ll land someplace near. 

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