About the Book
Witty and moving, this debut memoir in essays from the dynamic rapper and singer Dessa, is a candid account of her life in the van as a hard-touring musician, her determination to beat long odds to make a name for herself as a performing artist, and her struggle to fall out of love with someone in her band.
In a literary, honest style, evoking Amanda Palmer and Miranda July, Dessa demonstrates just how far the mind can travel while the body is on the six-hour ride to the next rap show.
Dessa defies category-she is an academic with an international rap career; a lyrical writer fascinated by behavioral science; and a funny, charismatic performer dogged by blue moods and a perseverant case of heartache. In "The Fool That Bets Against Me," Dessa wonders if the romantic anguish that's helped her write so many sad songs might be an insurable professional asset. To find out, she applies to Geico for coverage. "A Ringing in the Ears" tells the story of her father building an airplane in their backyard garage-a task that took him almost seven years. The essay titled "Congratulations" reflects on recording a song for The Hamilton Mixtape in a Minneapolis basement, straining for a high note and hoping for a break. The last piece in the collection, "Call off Your Ghost," relays the fascinating project Dessa undertook with a team of neuroscientists that employed fMRI technology and neurofeedback to try to clinically excise her romantic feelings for an old flame.
Her onstage and backstage stories are offset by her varied fascinations-she studies sign language, algebra, neuroanatomy--and this collection is a prism of her intellectual life. Her writing is infused with fascinating bits of science and sociology, philosophical insights, and an abiding tenderness for the people she tours with and the people she leaves behind to do it.
Dessa's music has been praised as "forceful and whip-smart" (NPR) with a sound "like no one else" (The Los Angeles Times); and My Own Devices is as uncompromising and brilliant. Dessa finds unconventional approaches to all of her subjects-braiding her lived experience with academic research and a poet's tone and timing. In the vein of thinkers who defy categorization, we get the debut of a deft, likable, and unusual voice.
About the Author :
Dessa is a rapper, a singer, and an essayist with a hip-hop crew called Doomtree. The seven-member collective has traveled the country and the world together sharing hotel beds, spotlights, and head colds. She's landed on the Billboard Top 200 list as a solo artist (Parts of Speech), as a Doomtree member (All Hands), and as a contributor to The Hamilton Mixtape. She has made her career by bucking traditional genre designations-rapping at rock festivals, co-composing for a full choir, and performing alongside a full orchestra. As a writer, she's contributed to the New York Times Magazine, MPR, the Star Tribune, Minnesota Monthly, literary journals across the country, and has published two short collections of poetry and essays. She grew up in Minneapolis as the daughter of a glider pilot (and former lute player) and a Bronx-born cattlewoman (and former public relations consultant). She now splits her time between New York City, Minneapolis, and a tour van cruising at six miles per hour above the posted limit.
Review :
Praise for My Own Devices
"[Dessa is] a natural at the written word. There's not an essay in My Own Devices that's less than fascinating... [My Own Devices] is funny, heartbreaking and brilliantly written, and very possibly the best memoir by a musician since Patti Smith's Just Kids." --Star Tribune "Dessa has captured the punishing beauty of untenable love and touring, states of being that both require a stubborn, romantic heart."--Tegan and Sara
"Dessa's words are an articulation of the universal." --MN Daily
"In a witty, well-researched collection of essays, the multidisciplinary creator delves into heartache, philosophy, and science from an artistic perspective." --The Austin Chronicle
"I'm not exaggerating when I say Dessa's words will change your life."--HelloGiggles
"My Own Devices is filled with... not just wit, candor and intelligence, but also the depth normally associated with longer works." --amNewYork
"Well-written and full of art and science, a really enjoyable read." --Angela Moon, Publisher's Weekly
"My Own Devices is more universal than most performer bios and more lyrical than many celebrity essay collections, as sharp and witty as the best magazine pieces." --Shelf Awareness
"As with any good memoir, Dessa's writing mingles the specific and the universal."--City Pages
"I found myself laughing with almost every page, often because the writing was funny, but even more often out of sheer delight at someone using the English language so audaciously well. Dessa has an essayist's eye and a rapper's virtuosity, and she's going to conquer the world."--Joseph Fink, author of Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn't Dead
"Dessa is a master of putting words to our feelings, even the ones that are hardest to pinpoint. This book is her deftest work: an articulation of the feelings that haunt so many of us: the thrill of pursuing everything you want, the terror of realizing you're racing against an invisible clock, and the ache of loving a person you probably shouldn't. I read it cover to cover--twice--and dogeared so many pages it would be easier to find the pages I *hadn't* marked. A beautiful book."--Nora McInerny, Author and host, Terrible, Thanks for Asking
"Dessa has consistently transcended conventional stereotyping, and her writing should command interest even from readers who know nothing of her work with the Doomtree collective and her solo releases."
