This week’s point-counter point review is of full-length debut of Doomtree’s Dessa, A Badly Broken Code. This was a pick that I hesitated to make for the joint-review because I know that Brian isn’t too keen on the hip-hop/rap front. Though I don’t pretend to be any sort of expert in this genre, I feel like I have a better than average knowledge of what’s going on, but my less enlightened colleague is largely ambivalent/ignorant of anything beyond Kanye’s newest. Zing!
A little background. Doomtree is a collective group under the Rhymesayers label out of Minneapolis. The idea is that it’s a lot of individual artists that collaborate and work with each other while still releasing their work under their own name. Doomtree does release some compilation albums, but most stuff comes out under the name of the artist who writes, etc. The most notable member of Doomtree is probably P.O.S., whose Never Better found its way onto several top albums of 2009 lists.
Dessa is a spoken word poet by trade but did some collaborating in Doomtree before releasing her False Hopes EP. A Badly Broken Code is her first full length contribution…and is pretty damn good.
The focus of this music is most definitely the lyrical work. It becomes apparent very early that Dessa is no rhyming slouch, undoubtably due to her past as a poet. Her rapping has great flow, but it’s of a different sort than most – you can hear the smoother, subtler poetic influence in her work. The writing is also top notch, reflecting on a troubled past and her struggles as a woman in the midst of hip-hop culture
My father was a paper plane/my mother was a windswept tree/my little brother’s nearly twice my age/He taught me how to meditate, I taught him how to read
The beats and production are adequate – they aren’t anything that will jump out and stick in your ear or make you really take notice, but they certainly never annoyed me either. I like how the whole album is produced to really feature Dessa’s lyrical work – this is really the selling point here and it’s constantly being thrust and held at the forefront.
A Badly Broken Code is a large offering – 15 tracks – a fact that I’m not sure I’m ready to praise. There are a lot of tracks here that are good, but nothing to really remember. I feel like a slimmer debut of, say, 10 or 12 tracks would have cut out a lot of average material and allowed the album to really focus on the best Dessa had to offer. She’s in a unique situation, in that fans already have heard plenty of her on other albums and tracks, as well as her EP, but she has never held the spotlight for this long. I found myself appreciating her uniqueness less when she wasn’t providing a contrast to more aggressive male voices as she has done on several other Doomtree related albums.
All in all, I’m a pretty big fan of this album. It’s by no means Doomtree’s best offering, but certainly provides something unique on the hip-hop landscape. There aren’t a lot of female MCs to begin with, but Dessa’s unique style and poetic flow make her really stick out. Perhaps the more complex lyrics and style will have some appeal outside the usual hip-hop crowd and introduce more people to the great music coming out of Minneapolis (also home to Atmosphere, Brother Ali, and P.O.S.).
Tracks I Liked
“Mineshaft 2″ – A sequel to a False Hopes EP track
“Children’s Work”
“Dutch”
These fell a little flat
“Dixon’s Girl”
“The Crow”
“Go Home”
If you liked Dessa, try…
Any of Brother Ali’s albums, BK-ONE’s Radio do Canibal
If this wasn’t your thing…
Sticking in Minneapolis, P.O.S. for something a little more aggressive with some punk influence or Atmosphere.
