If you are in tune with the underground and search out your Midwest brethren to see what people in Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul are producing artistically then you’ve probably run into the name Dessa Darling.
Dessa is a rapper, singer, poet and author that resides in the Mini Apple and is a part of a greater collective of artists known as Doomtree.
Dessa was launched into the underground spotlight after releasing her debut album, "A Badly Broken Code." The album was met with a great amount of positive praise and soon saw Dessa on the road to support the project.
After doing a good amount of touring with a band, the music began to take on a new life, which led to her releasing a new album called "Castor, The Twin" that captured her music in its morphed form with the band.
Dessa further explains the changing of the music as she and her band took the tunes out on the road.
"I had gone on a West Coast run earlier this year and I’d brought out a trio of live musicians to accompany me and to serve as a backing band. By the time we came back to Minneapolis we had really re-voiced these songs and quite a few of them sounded significantly different than they did when we left. We had key changes and we had some more complicated metrics and we came back with a stable of songs that really sounded very different from the recorded versions that I had already released.
"By the end of our run there were a lot of people in the crowd who approached us and said, "Hey, I liked that song, is there any chance that I can purchase the version that you just played?" After kind of receiving some votes of confidence in that way, I thought, let’s go into the studio and see if we can’t capture some of these new arrangements."
Dessa admits that having her voice so prevalent and bare on solo projects is scary at times, so she relishes the organic experience of having a live band performing with her and what it brings to the table regarding atmosphere.
"I asked the band to join me on tour because I like the idea of working live on stage without a net. When you’re backed by live players you can respond to the crowd in a way that you can’t exactly when you’re working with recorded track.
"We can engineer a really big dynamic range and make our quite moments really quite and we can extend our dramatic pauses and we can increase the volume of our crescendos and gauging our performance to room and the people in it. I like that idea of every performance being really different and being a product of a few hundred people in a room instead of pressing play on a beat."
Dessa also admits that the making of "Castor" was a bit scary because the security blanket of studio production magic was gone.
"I would say that if there’s a strength that I have as a musician it’s as a lyricist. I know a lot of people who sing a lot better than I do and I know a lot of people who can rap better, but I really go to the mat with anyone as a songwriter as far as lyrics. I was nervous because it meant that I had to really refine my use of the instrument. There was no hiding any imperfections in my voice through production. At the same time, I like the idea of really showcasing the narratives and the metaphors that I’m proud of on there."
Dessa will be in Chicago performing at the Apple Store in Lincoln Park today at 6 p.m. for free. The event is all ages. Check out the music video for one of Dessa’s tracks, "Into The Spin" – the "A Badly Broken Code" version – here.
Born in Milwaukee and raised in the Milwaukee suburb of Brown Deer, Concordia University Wisconsin alumnus Poppe has spent the majority of his life in or around the city and county of Milwaukee.
As an advocate of Milwaukee's hip-hop community Poppe began popular local music blog Milwaukee UP in March 2010. Check out the archived entries here.
Though heavy on the hip-hop, Poppe writes about other genres of music and occasionally about food, culture or sports, and is always ready to show his pride in Milwaukee and Wisconsin.
