Singer, writer, rapper, and podcast host Dessa caught up with Local Show host Diane for a conversation about her new pop single “Blush,” produced by Lazerbeak and Andy Thompson. Dessa also talked about her new science podcast “Deeply Human” and another performance with the Minnesota Orchestra in 2023. Furthermore, Dessa and Diane, both rappers, riffed about the mechanics of vocal delivery and the challenges of memorizing and reciting word-heavy songs.

Dessa will return to Minneapolis on Oct. 21 to perform at First Avenue with Open Mike Eagle, and take part in the Water Is Life Festival on Sept. 4 in Duluth. 

Interview highlights:

New single “Blush”

As someone who's dating, and in the past who has dated, I think that there is a particular temptation to curate the parts of yourself – not fabricating, but curating – the presentation that you might have, particularly early on in a relationship, to present the most likable sides. Which, while true, are not fully representative. So I think sometimes it takes a deliberate decision to try to bring one's entire self – even those aspects that are not likely to be the favorite facets of your partner – to bring those to the table, for me anyway. I think I often find myself reminding myself that that's important to do. And maybe also because doing the public performer thing, you're well aware of which one of your cards plays and which ones don't. You already know which stories kill on stage, and which run too long. And so it can be easy to try to just create this paper doll that lives four inches in front of you, and that you puppet through a conversation. But of course, then you're the lonely puppeteer.

Working with Lazerbeak and Andy Thompson

I think the reason that people are drawn to him is because Lazerbeak is zero pretension, man. And he's a genuinely nice guy that is interested in music that spans a lot of genres. So he's a huge Luther Vandross fan. He also makes really mean, grimy rap bangers. And he loves new country. I mean, he's got a really wide palette and sensibilities to choose from or to draw from.

But I would say that it's interesting, he and I, and he would say the same thing if he were here, but he and I were slow in some ways to gel, in that we liked working together, but it just felt like uphill and with a headwind for many, many years, until we started working together with the third member of my production kind of trio whose name is Andy Thompson. And for some reason, it was like Andy was the missing link in some ways. I feel like we all have really different talent sets. Lazerbeak works in a sampling environment. And Andy Thompson is more of a composer, so he also plays guitar and plays violin if track calls for it, a wide-ranging talented organic instrumentalist kind of way. And a banging producer. I don't play. I play a very, you know, like a child's level piano, but I hum sometimes parts that I hear in string sections and stuff and it felt like Andy was kind of the midpoint between the talent sets that Lazerbeak and I had. And I remember Lazerbeak talking about it, it's like, "This is way more fun with him here. We are way better with him." And yeah, I think there's like a certain "je ne sais what" about the three of us working together.

“Deeply Human” 

I am likely to assert that self-knowledge, in its own right, may be intrinsically good, to better understand why and how you work. Can I think sometimes give you pause to try to make better choices? Or at least maybe even just to be generous with yourself if you keep stumbling on a similar block, like sleeplessness, for example. In doing the episode about sleeplessness, I'm not an A+ sleeper, and I've gotten a little worse as I've gotten older. And that was kind of stressing me out in a vicious cycle sort of way, that you're stressed out to be awake. Okay, well, now it's even harder to fall asleep. That's a familiar wormhole for most people. But in doing that podcast and learning that at some points in our history, and at least in some parts of the planet, people very often were segmenting a night's sleep into two sections. So you go to bed, you knock out for a couple hours, then you wake up, get out of bed, maybe just read, maybe have sex, maybe go and visit the neighbors and have a chat for an hour, and then you go back to bed and finish your night. And for whatever reason, it just gave me permission to like, "Oh, I'm up at 4 a.m." And instead of screaming at myself internally to fall asleep, I was like, get up for an hour and a half, do some stuff, and don't worry about this as some sort of pathological pattern. And I was like, oh, I fall back asleep more often than I thought I would. It made me reconsider my own behaviors.

I think it promoted me from like a C to a C+. So I don't want to overstate the improvement. But then I think it also can help us be more generous and patient with other people's confusing behaviors, which we might interpret as an affront and end it there – "That guy's a jerk. That lady's insensitive. This sucks." To better understand the motives, and I'm not talking about like a total excusal but to truly understand the motives behind other people's confusing or aggravating behavior can kind of insert a lens of charitability between us and our understanding of them.

Minnesota Orchestra 2023

The shows that I've performed with, on the invitation of the Minnesota Orchestra, have been some of the most moving and challenging and gratifying ones that I've had the opportunity to play. I mean, it's just a stage absolutely freighted to the breaking point with virtuosic talent in every direction. It's, for me, somebody who maybe like you, came up in small ensembles or like a DJ, just the scale of it is phenomenal.

Yeah, so right now, I'm sitting in my apartment, and I've got essentially big Post-It notes on the walls, still sort of brainstorming for exactly what those upcoming performances will look like. But I know that there'll be a hybrid of some monologue and music. And I'm a big fan of vocal harmonies, too. The human voice is one of my first and favorite instruments. And so I'll be inviting like a cadre of some of Minneapolis's best voices to join me on stage. And we've been doing a lot of new music too. So new and aggressive orchestrations by Andy Thompson again. And I'm always a sucker for the pairing of unlikely parts of our culture. So the orchestra sounds fancy and sophisticated, and in some ways it is. But I like offsetting that, like, something on the other side of the seesaw. So the first show I did with them was in motorcycle boots and a fake TED Talk, just total camp. And I liked the idea of trying to incorporate that kind of doofiness and humor and some sort of raw elemental monologue stuff, in addition to this big orchestrated symphonic powerhouse. So I think we'll probably be working the extremes as much as we work the middle. 

Memorization and the presentation of words

I think you probably have the same feeling that – I mean, there is a modularity to songs. So if you can get the first word of the verse, very often, the rest of the verse will follow. And it's so interesting, because songs that I've been playing for years, so not the new ones, I mean, the ones that are in my body. It is in some small way an act of muscle memory. I mean, I remember the first time – there's an adrenal surge of total canine panic, just pointer-dog freeze sometimes when you hear a beat, you know that you're supposed to rap in eight bars, you can't remember what the song is about, you have no idea what that first word is. And then it's so funny, because it's like, two beats before you're supposed to open your mouth, your mouth opens, and it starts. I mean, for the really old songs. And I remember the first time at soundcheck that I realized that I had the mental capacity for the really old songs to check the mic and also text at the same time. And I saw that my thumb was moving very fast between the words and slowing when I was saying them – I'm realizing that I think it's toggling in there, the language capacity. But it's like a can opener. If you can get it started, it's easy, but sometimes it's tricky to get it started. 

Between New York and Minneapolis

I split my time between New York and Minneapolis. I was born and raised in Minneapolis. My mother's family is in New York. So this is a place I spent a good deal of time when I was a kid. It feels pretty good. I mean, I'm not running like a corporate suit every week, back and forth. I kind of come back for a group of shows and then and then head back to the other spot. So I'm a sucker for New York in a totally unsophisticated way. The way that you feel when you're 19 and you get off the plane for the first time. I really love this city still. I think it's a wonderful place. And obviously, they're natural foils to each other. You know what I mean? So if the foot traffic and constant sirens of New York become overwhelming, like, I'll be in Minneapolis in a few weeks.

I think for people who might be otherwise prone to like ruminative thoughts, too, I think that challenge even of navigation quiets the other — the internal circuits that might be hard to turn off. Like, really having to pay attention to where your body is, lest you impede someone behind you walking faster, or pay attention to how to navigate I think that can be a quieting factor in some ways, even with all the noise.

Into the future

I have written a little bit of fiction, and I'd like to get better at that. I feel like I've written some short stories of which I'm very proud. But I haven't done a full, proper book-length novel yet. I think that might be in the cards. I really still like performing. So I don't have the appetite to get in the van and do a 56-city tour anymore. But I do have the appetite to get in the van and do five shows in a row and then go home. And then do it again a couple months from now. So I think the public presentation of words, whatever that means, I think that's important to me, in part because I think that's my primary art form, even if there's not a name for it. Like, nobody's a professional conversationalist. I guess technically you are a professional conversationalist, who am I talking to? (Laughs) But yeah for the kind of poems and stuff that I write, most, not all, but most of them I think are better presented aloud because part of the artistry is knowing when to pause and when to draw the register. And when to lift an eyebrow. And that's not on the page. Ten is a long time, though. Dude, I'm sort of vamping. I'm gonna borrow my friend and manager Becky's phrase, but who knows if we'll all be living above ground in 10 years. Like, any freaking thing can happen.