Music Everywhere
Tuesday 12 June @ 11:40:23 |
Oh-h-h, Dessa 
by DWIGHT HOBBES
I was on the phone with Nate Santos from 2 Wurds, figuring out when I could see his band perform, when he said somebody named Dessa was there and asked whether I wanted to talk to her. I had a vague recollection of someone having mentioned the name in conjunction with Hip-Hip and, being you can’t throw most Hip-Hop on me in a bucket of water, hell, no I didn’t want to talk her. But, being a nice guy, I said, “Yeah, sure.” She got on the line and, if memory serves, was coached by Nate to ask if I wanted to hear her EP, False Hopes. Great, just what I needed. A disc I had absolutely no interest in hearing. But, again, being such a nice guy, I gave her my mailing address.
Damn thing never arrived. I made a gracious show of being patient, e-mailing Dessa that if it ever got to me, I’d pop it on straightaway and give it a good listen. Hell, at two weeks late, it showed no signs of ever arriving, so I could afford to be very gracious, indeed. That night, turns out, I caught 2 Wurds at 400 Bar and Nate told me Dessa would be sitting in. OK, fine. How bad can even Hip-Hop be mixed with the R&B funk of a band as sharp and tight as 2 Wurds. Well, after the first few numbers, she stepped up on stage and I was damned good and glad Santos had handed her the phone that day. I also wanted to know, all of sudden, where the hell my copy of her EP was and why the postal system always seems to fuck up at the exact time I desperately need it not to.
Dessa rapped so exceptionally, I wondered a hot minute if Hip-Hip wasn’t such a bad thing after all. When this woman sang, I damned near fell on the floor: She had some of the most inventive phrasing I’d ever heard this side of Smokey Robinson. And intonation that left sultry allure choking on her dust. Needless to say, I hurried up and got my hands on that EP. Then caught her at Triple Rock Social Club with singer-violinist Jessy Greene sitting in. For the first time since I was a teenager, watching Jefferson Airplane, I just stood there, slack-jawed, dumber than a bag of rocks(on top of everything, she’s real easy on the eyes). I practically lost it when she sang, “Kites,” off False Hopes (Doomtree Records). “The neon burns a hole in the night/ And the Freon burns a hole in the sky/ You could find my kind/ Living right on the fault line/ Eyes on the seaside, lives on the b-sides, Kites on the powerlines.”
FYI: Dessa is winner of the 2005 Jerome/SASE grant for writers, and was nominated best Spoken Word artist at the MN Music Awards in 2005 and 2006. She slammed for the Minnesota team, after winning the 2002 Grand Slam and has shared the stage with, among others, international icon Wyclef Jean and Twin Cities luminaries Atmosphere. And has finished a full-length CD, which, when the label releases it, I’m gonna get two copies so that when I wear the first one out, I don’t have to wait around for the mail or go to the store for some backup.
Dessa is at The Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant, 1010 Nicollet in downtown Minneapolis, on the bill with headliner Jessy Greene, June 22. I’ll be the guy closest to the stage, looking like he got hit between the eyes with a velvet sledgehammer.
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