Andrew Veeder on July 2nd, 2013

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Minneapolis, MN’s Dessa is a wordsmith whose pursuits include spoken word, creative non-fiction, and hip-hop. A part of the Doomtree collective, as well as on the Doomtree label, she was the valedictorian of her high school, Minneapolis Southwest, and graduated college with honors a year early with a degree in philosophy. It shows in the first single “Warsaw” from her latest album “Parts Of Speech.”Â Her flow is multifaceted and smart, free-flowing between styles, speeds and shifting cadences; and it dances all over a muted pulsating Pacman beat with bulging wobbles, rhythmic kicks, and piano that mellows into a soft haze. She raps, “Yes, yes, naysayers got the wrong job / Best bet when you think they got the wrong odds / And I’ve done some living in a glass house,” and then to close sings with swagger, “High note blew the motherf*cking walls off”¦” The vibe is confident and hypnotic, like the rest of the eclectic album mixing live instrumentation and production, as well as singing and rapping, and it’s refreshing for its rhetoric and intelligence.

||| Stream: “Warsaw” from the new album “Parts Of Speech”

||| Live: Dessa plays July 13 at the Troubadour with support from Open Mike Eagle.