Dessa: A Badly Broken Code

Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste
The fact that Dessa name-checks the Minneapolis edition of the Chicago Manual Of Style on the track “Dutch” speaks to two important facets of her debut album, A Badly Broken Code: 1) It slots in nicely with the flourishing Twin Cities mode of hip-hop characterized by the Rhymesayers and Doomtree collectives. (Dessa is the sole female on the latter’s roster.) 2) More significantly, it indicates the weight she places on her lyrics. Dessa, a former spoken-word artist who recently released a collection of short stories and poetry, clearly considers writing a craft worthy of study and precision, and Code reflects that in its intricate, sometimes confounding, but always intriguing wordsmithery.