Hip-hop is a community built off
of competition and respect. It is a world in which you reign supreme or you go
home and work harder. It is a realm of specificity that grew out of the South
Bronx responding to urban hardships. With these definitions of hip-hop in mind,
how could a Puerto Rican and Caucasian woman break through in the business? The
same way every great MC has done it: through hard work, creativity, and a
writing style that stands out.
The concept of women in hip-hop is
no new phenomenon. Dessa surely isn’t the first female MC to gain success. But
she is the only femcee I have ever heard that combines singing, rapping,
philosophy and ethics in such an individualistic manner. Like I said before,
hip-hop is about competition. If you listen to a rapper and can’t tell who it
is, his/her voice isn’t pushing through enough. Once you’ve listened to Dessa, you will forever be able to pull her voice out of the sea of conformity.
The Minneapolis native has been compared
to Mos Def’s social activism and the wit of Dorothy Parker. Her intellect is
rooted in her B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota. Her years of
studying have paid off as her word structure and content enters dimensions I’ve
only experienced in poetry. She crosses boundaries, combining mediums of spoken
word, classical music, literature, and history. Dessa got her start in slam
poetry where she was discovered by MC Yoni and then introduced to Minneapolis
rap collective Doomtree. A now established member of Doomtree, she is able to
spread her words across the world and tackle hard topics such as moral
responsibility in hip-hop. She has conducted lectures and essays on this idea
discussing whether or not artists should take notice to how their music affects
listeners and can influence negative actions and ideas that overall contribute
to our society. She has also spoken about how a female perspective can
penetrate through a male dominated music culture. Her overall goal is to adjust
narrow mindsets to create a supporting community that welcomes everybody.
While Dessa tackles modern social
issues and dabbles in genre hybridity, she stays true to the drive of an MC. In
Veteran, one of her earlier tracks, she finds power in her minority status:
“And
to everybody talking about my tits/ I guess that it’s because you can’t find
shit to diss about the way I spit/ I’ll blow my lips a kiss/ Another feel you
couldn’t cop/ I’ve got shit to do in Pro Tools while you’re fucking around in
Photoshop”
She addresses her academic background in The Bullpen from
her debut LP A Badly Broken Code:
“It’s
been assumed I’m soft or irrelevant/ Cause I refuse to downplay my
intelligence/ But in a room of thugs and rap veterans/ Why am I the only one
who’s acting like a gentleman
Though Dessa expresses a softer side in her newest album Parts of Speech, her fighting soul
bursts through every crevasse of her lyrics:
“I didn’t come
looking for love/ I didn’t come to pick a fight/ I come here every night to
work/ and you can grab an axe man or you can step aside.” – Fighting Fish
In the end, it's not one's level
of education or background of poetry that matters, but how an artist can evoke emotion.
Dessa can spit, but she can also make you cry. She can put shame to your
vocabulary but she also brings out childhood memories. She not only should be
respected for her writing, singing, and rapping style, but also for her overall
power as an artist and fellow human being.
Dessa's third full length album, Parts of Speech dropped this summer. Here is the lyric video for the single, Warsaw produced by Paper Tiger.
