Singer and rapper Dessa talks new music and two decades in the Twin Cities music scene

[DESSA, “DIXON’S GIRL”] Back to the wall, bat to the ball, back to the drawing board

Back to the wall, bat to the ball, back to the drawing board

Back to the wall, bat to the ball, back to the drawing board

Again

There was a snow storm in Jackson

When you and I met

At a club called St. Sebastian’s

But the sign said something different

I remember thinking that I didn’t have a shot at Mississippi

Television told us which roads they were closing

There goes a rap show

NINA MOINI: Beautiful tune. That’s the song “Dixon’s Girl” by Dessa, from her debut album. 15 years later, she’s got new music on the horizon. Dessa joins me now to talk about her newest project and her upcoming collaborations. All very exciting. Thanks for spending some time with us this afternoon, Dessa.

DESSA: Hey, thanks for having me on.

NINA MOINI: I wonder what you think about when you hear songs from 15 years ago, and then listening to them now. Is that fun for you? Do you listen differently?

DESSA: [LAUGHS] It’s the only thing I listen to. It’s just constant me. No. Also, could I just state–

NINA MOINI: I wouldn’t blame you.

DESSA: [LAUGHS] No, I was like, could I also just state for the record that I have put out some music between then and now?

NINA MOINI: Totally, right? Yeah. After a 15-year hiatus– no, I’m kidding. [LAUGHS]

DESSA: I mean, when I listen to vintage Terry Gross episodes, I think part of what’s fascinating to me is to hear, actually, the register of her voice. You know, the timbre has changed.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, it changes.

DESSA: It does, yeah. And so I think aside even from whatever feelings the songs come up, invoke, it’s interesting just to hear how the instrument is seasoned, yeah.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. I feel that way, sometimes, if I listen back to some of my earlier days reporting. The voice just tends to change over time. And yeah, your life changes, and you change. Bringing it to current day, you have a new EP coming out next month and one of those songs is being released tomorrow. We’re going to take a listen. This is “Camelot.” Let’s take a listen.

[DESSA, “CAMELOT”]

Welcome to Camelot

Don’t wake the baby

None of the lights turn off

Keeps us all neighborly

It gets noisy at night

But if you’ve nothing to hide

You should sleep through ’em fine

Think tank, go fish

Dunk tank, you’re it

Next act has a spray tan and a flashbang

And the First Amendment in a burn bag

Can’t risk it, wish I could

But tell you what, let me knock on wood

And if the guardrails hold up like they should

We should all be double plus good

Welcome to Camelot

NINA MOINI: I like it. Tell us a little bit about what this song’s about.

DESSA: Thanks. I don’t write too many overtly political songs. I tend to usually focus on the mechanisms of human relationships. But I think, like a lot of folks, to me, this feels like an unusual time. It feels like we keep falling through the bottom, politically and sometimes culturally. And so, yeah, I think in an effort to pull the levers that I can reach, I was like, all right, the thing that I’m good at is writing songs. And so sat down and tried to make a contribution to the conversation that we’re having about, what does it mean to try to protect your rights? Gosh, that’s not the super-sexy, immediate thing, fodder for every rap banger.

But yeah, also to write about what it feels like to be in the moment. I think as a kid I imagined it would be really stark, like you stood up for what you believed in and you went to the Hill and you unsheathed your sword and you lifted your sign. And I think in real life, it’s a lot more complicated. There’s no place to sign up to be in the rebellion. You just have to invent the resistance yourself with your friends.

NINA MOINI: And I know you said you haven’t always talked about political things, but I also feel like people know you for just your honesty, your vulnerability and willingness to go different places, maybe, that make up people’s experiences in life. And I wondered, since you’re not only the songwriter, you’re also producing, what’s your process like for writing? Are you doing the songwriting first?

DESSA: Yeah, for me, very often, I’ll collect little scraps of language that I like or a clever turn of phrase that occurs to me. I woke up last night from a dream and reached for my computer and typed it out, squinting in the blue light. But from those scraps, it usually, for me, takes a piece of music to order them, to sequence them, and to put them into the semblance of a shape that is a song. So for this one I did the production first and then asked my mega-talented friends Andy Thompson and Lazerbeak to help me polish it up, and then recorded the lyrics after that. So humming melodies until they gelled, yeah.

NINA MOINI: Mm-hmm. I just am always curious about songwriters, because I just think it’s so cool and I wonder about their process. Do you like to be alone? Are you around anybody?

DESSA: Ooh, OK. Well, there’s songwriting as I would like to do it, is like, I’m very sociable, and I’m very fast. And I think in real life, I’m neurotic and will not quite circle the drain, but I’ll fixate, running a single line in my head over and over again. That’s the backdrop of my mental life, even as I’m making ramen or walking around or running errands. So yeah, to me, it’s slower work than I would like it to be. But it’s very meticulous and all-consuming until it’s done.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Well, I imagine you really wouldn’t want to rush something like that, because it’s so meaningful to you.

DESSA: I mean, I would totally rush it if it would end up good. I know so many songwriters who can write in a flash, but that’s not–

NINA MOINI: You know what? You’re right. That must be annoying when people are like, it just came out of me and the song was written in five minutes. Yeah. I have heard that from a lot of people.

DESSA: I want to take your pen and I’m going to snap it over my knee.

[LAUGHTER]

NINA MOINI: So this song, though, that we listened to, it’s part of a two-song EP that’s actually coming out November 4. Is there going to be an album to follow? What’s the process like for you there?

DESSA: Yeah, so this one is a 7-inch, and for audiophiles in the listening audience, they’ll know that as the small record that’s 7 inches in diameter, hence the name. So it’s just enough room for one track on each side, so this is the advanced single for essentially a two-song project. I know that the music industry is not enamored with two-song projects, but I’m a miniaturist. I love the idea of short stories. I love the idea of making an art project exactly as long as the art demands, instead of exactly as long as can fill the standard delivery system for art, you know what I mean?

NINA MOINI: Totally.

DESSA: So to me it felt like, hey, this is a two-song project. And I’m working on other songs at the moment. But I think– I imagine this one is freestanding.

NINA MOINI: That’s cool. And so I hear you also have this collaboration with the Minnesota Orchestra coming up, and it’s your fifth time doing this. And I want to give a taste of what that sounds like, so we have a clip of “Sound the Bells,” recorded live with the Minnesota Orchestra. This was 2019. Let’s take a little listen to that.

[DESSA AND THE MINNESOTA ORCHESTRA, “SOUND THE BELLS”]

Go lift your sails up

For one last swell

Go lift your sails up

To sound the bells

Sound the bells

Sound the bells

Sound the bells

Sound the bells

NINA MOINI: Just so beautiful, Dessa. I wonder what that unique experience is like, with all of these amazing musicians around you.

DESSA: Yeah. I mean, I think the scope of it is hard to overstate, to have– you know how in government, you might not want to have all five of the top leaders in one room, because it’s just too risky? So like, the Minnesota Orchestra being on stage feels like that. God, just the excess of ability here. That song, like all of them in my set, was arranged by Andy Thompson, close friend, and just a heck of an orchestrator. So yeah, it’s enormously emotional.

And also, to be totally frank, I’m on two wheels. I’m at the edge of what I know how to do. This is as good as I– this is as ambitious a project as I’ve had the opportunity to take on. Those shows involve not only these amazing orchestral players, but five-voice harmony arrangements by me and Aby Wolf, and there’s sometimes costume changes, and I’m often scaffolding those songs on a narrative arc that holds up the evening. So it’s an opportunity to really floor it, you know what I mean? Let it out on the highway and see how fast this art can go.

NINA MOINI: Such a gift.

DESSA: Feels good.

NINA MOINI: Such a gift, yeah.

DESSA: It is a gift, yeah. By that I mean, thanks, Minnesota Orchestra, for calling me. What a gift.

NINA MOINI: No, no, but all of you are a gift. My favorite concert I always say I ever saw was Boyz II Men with the Minnesota Orchestra, and it was–

DESSA: No joke.

NINA MOINI: –the best concert ever, I have to say. We only have about 40 seconds left with you. I wish we had more time. But I do wonder, I know some people are annoyed by this question, but what’s next? Is there something that you haven’t done yet that you want to do? What are you thinking about?

DESSA: Yeah. I think right now, head down, getting ready to sing with all these amazing vocalists at the orchestra. But I’m also working on some prose, which is where I started, ink on page. So short stories, essays, and maybe a play.

NINA MOINI: Slowly but surely those are coming together, I feel like. Thank you so much for your time, Dessa, and congratulations.

DESSA: Thanks for having me. Make a mint in this pledge drive.

NINA MOINI: [LAUGHS] We hope so. That’s Minneapolis singer and rapper Dessa. Her new single, “Camelot,” is out tomorrow.