(upbeat music) - Welcome to Music Matters.

I am your host, Apolonia Davalos.

We build community through music, as we meet the artists of Innoskate.

Innoskate Sioux Falls was a free festival with skateboarding invention, creativity, and fun.

(upbeat music) Renaissance woman Dessa, is a hip hop star who is deeply human.

A contributor to the number one album, The Hamilton Mix Tape, ranked among the top 200 entries on Billboard charts, published with her memoir, "My Own Devices: True Stories From the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love."

Music Matters is inspired to introduce Dessa.

♪ Make dixie Look like cartoon ♪ ♪ That lady Justice ♪ ♪ In black yet ♪ ♪ Lens cap on the body cam ♪ ♪ Missed again day ♪ ♪ Then make a wait ♪ ♪ Mother your name ♪ ♪ And Saint Peter at the gates says ♪ ♪ Tuck your chain in ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Many roads ♪ ♪ You live by robbing coal ♪ - Singing helped-- was a really big part of like my first human relationship, my relationship with my mother.

And she had this excellent voice, like effortless Whitney Houston runs, up and down the scale.

So for me, the sound of a woman's voice in song was very much part of my childhood terrain.

♪ Everybody knew you ♪ I think one of the surprises, for good or ill, about being like a mid-career artist is that you really have to go and deliberately refill the well, from which you're drawing your ideas.

So, like when you write that first record, let's say you're 19, or let's say you're 16, or let's say you're 25, you've had your whole life until that first record comes out, to write that record, essentially.

You draw from all of those experiences.

Then you're sort of expected to write a record every couple of years until you're dead, right?

And so very often you find, "Oh, I kind of mind the topics that meant most, that were most urgent to me in the beginning.

I don't wanna write into this song about this guy.

Or I don't wanna write another song about this particular childhood experience."

So, having a life outside your musical practice is where the music comes from.

Indulging your fascinations is a really big responsibility of the artist, to make sure that you have the raw clay from which to fashion new ideas.

I will say that at the beginning of my career there were relatively few women.

It was, it was unusual enough that a woman was rapping, that like, if you were to club and you were performing, when my voice would go over the PA, you know, for moments anyway, like the cats drinking at the bar would go, because it was weird.

And in some ways that serves you, right?

Like you're trying to get attention, it does help to have that moment of hang on, what's happening.

And in all the ways that you might imagine, that also sucked, you know?

But I'll, I will say that I, at the beginning, I was really cautious about singing because I didn't want to be written off.

You know, in that point, in hip hop culture, which now feels like a million years ago, very often there was like a collective of dudes who would rap.

And then there were female voices who would be brought on to do the hooks, which were sung beautifully.

But it felt like there was this division, right?

They weren't part of the crew in the same way.

They were this guest voice, right?

To add the beauty, to add the softness.

And I didn't wanna do the beauty and the softness.

I wanted to be like a rugged member of the clique, that's why I liked the clique.

And so I was reluctant to sing too much at the beginning.

I was, I dressed like in huge pants with boxers like folded over the top and these really oversized, you know, double XL or whatever, hoodies.

And as time has marched on, I-- the world has changed for the better, I have hopefully changed for the more reflective than in some ways.

I realize shaping your entire career based on industry trends, even if your compensatory, is still being inappropriately swayed by industry trends, right?

So, I like singing.

I'm good at singing.

I want to sing.

So I would say that over the course of my career, I do a lot more melody.

I would also say I was like, in some ways, I was a quick study with language, but it was a real development with performance.

Like I'm a much better singer now I think than I was five and 10 years, which delights me because I didn't know, does your voice get better?

Am I gonna overuse it?

Am I gonna blow it out?

And it feels so good to be able to sing more confidently, the notes that I wanna hit.

♪ Don't be shy ♪ ♪ I already like you ♪ ♪ Don't care what you do ♪ ♪ I'm attracted to the IQ ♪ ♪ It's not my style to make the first move ♪ ♪ Haven't felt this type of way since maybe high school ♪ - So, when I'm not on stage, I'm very often involved in writing for either broadcast or the page.

Meaning, I like language in all its forms, as song lyrics or as a little play or as an essay, which is how I first started to cut my teeth in the language arts, in a lot of ways.

And for the past couple of years, I've worked with the BBC on this podcast called "Deeply Human."

And it dives into a lot of human behavior with a scientific lens.

So it asks questions like, "Why do we get de ja vu?"

or "Why do our bodies respond to rhythm?"

And I had the opportunity to interview dance therapists and neuroscientists, who were studying the ways that when our bodies-- when we hear music, our bodies sync systemically, meaning like, it seems to be the fact, that when we hear a regular rhythm, even the neurons in our brain start to sync and fire, without-- in depth with that rhythm.

And so music, in a lot of ways, helps coordinate effortlessly, motion and maybe also like, social interactions between people, and that it provides us with this kind of regular metric grid, that we all align to.

So you may have seen like studies where there's somebody playing a drum or something and everyone's asked to walk around in a circle, and everybody almost immediately begins to walk in step to the rhythm that's created.

So like even patients who are suffering with Parkinson's disease, which is a movement disorder.

If you play a metronome, meaning just a-- (tongue clicks) just a regular rhythm, very often that will help smooth and expedite their gait.

They can walk more easily, just with that little bit of external stimulation, a regular rhythm, in like a-- in an earbud, essentially.

So, "It's elemental," would be an understatement.

And I think we're still learning why it is that we respond so dramatically to rhythm and music.

♪ The city could feel like a little town ♪ ♪ Think of marathons on ♪ ♪ Where they running all their mouths ♪ ♪ But let 'em talk ♪ ♪ They're gonna wear themselves out ♪ ♪ My book stays open ♪ ♪ I know, 'cause I wrote it ♪ ♪ Messed up ♪ - Dessa, thank you again so very much for inviting us into the elemental causation that music brings to our lives.

- Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

(women chuckle) - She's amazing.

Learn more about her, visit her website dessawander.com, give her a follow on all her social media.

And we like to thank the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation for your sponsorship.

I am your host Apolonia Davalos, and I love you.

Mwah.

- Hey, mwah.

(women chuckle) (upbeat music fades) - We-- - We-- - We love-- - We love-- - We love the Levitt.