She's a friend of the show, so when musician and writer Dessa told us about her new podcast, Deeply Human, we had to invite her on. In a convo that almost got out of hand, Dessa and Juleyka talk about why she created the show, how she's the show's real-life test dummy, and why she loves "science in street clothes."
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Juleyka Lantigua-Williams:
Hey, everybody. Juleyka here. Today, I’m asking you to indulge me, because we have a really special guest, someone I basically fan girl, but there’s a reason that I brought her on the show. She is Dessa. She’s a rapper and writer based in Minnesota and to me, she’s basically an artist who defies easy categories. I mean, she’s performed at Lollapalooza and Glastonbury, but also made compositions for a 100-voice choir, and she’s also performed her original music with the Minnesota Orchestra. On the other hand, she’s in the Billboard Top 200 and she has a song on The Hamilton Mixtape. I mean, seriously. Talk about range.
So, I wanted to introduce you to her if you don’t know about her already, and she’s a special friend of the show. She actually has listened to the show. And she’s Puerto Rican, so you know, she fits right in with a bunch of us. I’m so excited that she’s here today, because she’s now joining the ranks of podcasts with her very own podcast called Deeply Human. Here’s the trailer:
Dessa: Hey, I’m Dessa, the host of a new show called Deeply Human. I normally make my living as a musician and a writer, but I’ve always been a science fiend. Fascinated by the hidden motors that drive human experience and behavior. Why do we get déjà vu? Why are we so attracted to symmetrical faces? Why do we listen to music that makes us sad? Why is the female orgasm still such a total mystery to sex researchers? Somehow, I have landed a very fancy podcast. Do you guys have air horns here? No. It’s the one that goes… Yes. That’s it, exactly. I have got a freaking podcast where I am tasked with finding out what we all want to know. Why do you do what you do?
There will be romance and flesh wounds, contagious laughter, and chilling hallucinations.
Guest: You tend to sort of swim up to them and wiggle.
Guest 2: And I said, “Trust me. God does not want me to open fire.”
Guest 3: Why aren’t you Beyoncé? She has the same 24 hours you do.
Guest 4: The socks stay on and I don’t know what you can do to get somebody’s socks off.
Guest 5: He lied. So, I was very happy.
Guest 6: We were attempting to induce déjà vu through virtual reality.
Dessa: You’re in my head, Dan. You’re in my head!
Guest 7: So, I can zip up 30 degrees in less than a second.
Dessa: Wow.
Guest 8: For everything I know, when presented in this moment, I will always wonder why I didn’t say what was clearly obvious.
Dessa: I think smart can be funny. I think science happens in street clothes. And I think that a better understanding of human nature can help us be more generous with other people’s weird behavior and more critical of our own. Deeply Human. It’s a date. Me, you, and your brain. Subscribe wherever pods are cast.
Barry: You are way, way too good to be needing to use Tinder, let me say.
Dessa: I’ll take it! I’m gonna put that… You know what I’m gonna do? If it’s cool with you-
Barry: You want my endorsement?
Dessa: Barry, can I put that on my Tinder account?
Barry: Yeah.
Dessa: I’m doing it for real.
Barry: If you think it’ll help.
Lantigua-Williams:
So, I really like the premise of Deeply Human and I really like that it’s Dessa who’s leading us through these sort of like amorphous investigations, because there’s a few things you should know about her. One, she’s wicked smart, as people in Boston might say. And two, she really likes to play around with big ideas and big concepts. And three, she’s not afraid of a little experimentation. Let’s get into it.
Why are you such a science geek?
Dessa: So, I’ve been into science I think since I was like a kid, and in some ways, I feel like it might be trying to answer the question, like, “How come you like chocolate?” Like just because elementally, I really dig it. It’s always been interesting to me. But I think in part, it’s also just because it helps understand the way that the world is built, you know? And I was very much a kid who asked questions and who talked a lot when she was little. You know, my mom used to joke that her ears would bleed after a conversation with me when I was like a toddler.
So, I think that question, like why? Why? Why? I think that’s fundamentally very often a science question.
Lantigua-Williams:
Yeah, but you also have a history of being your own test dummy in scientific experiments. So, as someone who knows that about you, I was delighted when I heard your first episode, so catch everybody up in the ways that you’ve experimented, quite literally, on yourself, and then how that dovetailed into developing this beautiful show.
Dessa: Okay, so I had gone through a breakup that was like a really tough one, and I did all the things that people do when they’re trying to recover from that. You know, so you keep yourself busy, you throw yourself into work, you drink too much whiskey if you’re into that kind of thing, you hang out with your friends, and you wait. And I waited for like years, and then more years, and it just wasn’t getting any better. And after a while, I mean, I was really embarrassed about it. It seemed like breaking up was something that people did all the time. And it was universally painful very often, but it wasn’t decades long.
It started to be like a force in my life that eclipsed a lot of others and I hated that, and I felt embarrassed about it. I felt like in some ways it really ran counter to a lot of my ideas about feminism, and being self-empowered, and so I decided to try to tackle that with all the resources at my disposal, and I thought, “Okay, well, what is it when people are in this persistent state of heartache? What does that mean? How do people get out of it? What is the brain doing?” And so, I went pretty hard, man. I did a lot of reading and I ended up contacting a couple of scientists to say, “Would you be game to have me as a test subject, one of one, to see if we can image my brain in breakup mode and see if we can change the way it’s functioning?” With something called neurofeedback.
And I mean, as for why I’m my own science subject, like who else would let a rapper experiment on them? I’m the only one with her hand up.
Lantigua-Williams:
So, let’s talk about this first episode, because I thought it was really interesting that you decided to start with the most ephemeral of ephemeral topics.
Dessa: I mean, it… Come on. Whether you’re a science fiend or not, I think most of our big questions, at least a lot of them, do center on love. Like how is one particular person attracted to one another? And also, maybe even more important, like after two people are attracted to one another, what are the variables that determine whether or not that lasts? You know, like what’s the glue after the magnet? And I think that’s fascinating. And you’re right, it’s so multivariable that sometimes it can feel like it’s too hard, because it’s so complicated to study, but there are some really clever experiments that people have done. Even if it’s just to try to find trends. You know, like what sort of people tend to latch with other people?
Lantigua-Williams:
Yeah.
Dessa: And also, I’m single. I mean, so it’s not a completely theoretical inquiry, you know what I mean?
Lantigua-Williams:
Yeah, so it’s got a service component to it, like get ready for the deluge of emails with proposals and invites to all kinds of things. I will pray for you. But one of the things that I loved in this first episode was this whole question about whether more is better, right? And I have to… True confessions, I met my husband on Match.com when it was still embarrassing to say that you met people on Match.com. But, but, I don’t want to give it away. I just want to say that you really interrogate this whole notion that freedom equals more choices, so I want you to take me through how you developed that line for the show, and then how you went and tried to get that answered.
Dessa: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think for every episode that we do, one of my big objectives is to try to find people with really different vantage points whose research might present an answer. You know, so that might mean talking to an artist, and an evolutionary anthropologist, to say, “Okay, how do we understand X?” And in this case, how do we understand matching romantically, and how do we choose our mates, essentially, you know?
So, to speak with someone who is an expert on choice, like all human choice, everything from picking a watch, to essentially picking a life partner, he’s studied a lot of the mechanisms that guide human decision making, and some of them are really counterintuitive. So, yeah, I think most of us would naturally suppose that the more choices you have, the better your chances of getting something you really dig. And the expert to whom I spoke suggested that we really, really interrogate that assumption, and has some interesting data to suggest like that feeling, like I don’t usually go to Sephora. I usually do my cosmetic shopping at Walgreens. I find it more difficult at Sephora, because there’s so… you know what I mean? What color am I-
Lantigua-Williams:
More choices.
Dessa; Exactly. Am I a toasted almond or am I a roasted cashew and what is the difference? And so, there can be this sort of like decision paralysis that I think we’ve all experienced in some small way. But also, the idea of like the cost of the deliberation itself. You know, standing there, burning calories, freaking out that you might not get the right thing, whatever that means, whether that’s blush or a date on Friday, it can sort of mess with your standards and just take up a bunch of time. I think a lot of people who are single have spent a lot of time swiping that hasn’t resulted in a lot of human companionship, you know what I mean? A lot of time choosing and not a lot of time getting.
Lantigua-Williams:
You take this experimentation to a very brave level, because you get your mom involved, and I have to say I don’t have the cojones to do that. Just… I just don’t. How did that idea happen and then what did you learn by sort of having her be part of your experiment?
Dessa: Okay, so for the show overall, I’m really eager to connect the kind of research that we discuss to our actual lived lives. You know, I think too often science is sort of like relegated to these imagined spaces where mostly white dudes in white coats mix things in beakers, and-
Lantigua-Williams:
Yeah.
Dessa: I’m like way more interested in trying to figure out how current research could actually make our lived lives better, do you know what I mean? So, how does what is happening inform the decision that I might make on any given Tuesday afternoon? And so, with the dating stuff, I mean, I think I was eager to have the real conversations that you’d actually have. Some of those with my mom, I mean, obviously I’m not sharing all the details of my romantic life with my mother. But also, to talk to her about generationally, how ideas have changed, obviously they’ve changed a bunch, and she actually met her man on like a newspaper classified ad, which was essentially like internet dating before the internet.
Lantigua-Williams:
What?
Dessa: Yes. And my father also met his wife on the internet, so trading notes with like a woman I trust, but also a woman who could kind of speak with a different generational vantage point, and who knows me, obviously, and who can giggle, and tease with me on a microphone.
Lantigua-Williams:
Yeah. So, what are some of the big questions that you’re asking for the rest of the season, and if you can share maybe one weird, interesting adventure that you went on as you sought out these answers.
Dessa: So, I’ve always been really interested in very highly subjective experiences. So, you know, like when… I don’t know, like teenagers when they’re high and go like, “What if red isn’t the same for you if it is for me?” Those kind of questions about like how do our consciousnesses compare? And so, I got to speak to this woman who has déjà vu in a way that is probably really, really different than you experience déjà vu. It was super different than the way that I experienced it. But of course, because you can’t just like trade that info as you would a note in class or something, she thought that everybody was having these super intense, existential, overwhelming, paralyzing fits of déjà vu just like she was, and that was just what it felt like to be alive.
Lantigua-Williams:
What?
Dessa: Yes. And so, talking with her about how long it took-
Lantigua-Williams:
Oh my God.
Dessa: … to understand that what she’s experiencing isn’t representative of the rest of the human experience, I think in some ways a lot of us might have small things like that. Just because we don’t have an easy way to trade notes on how our minds are.
Lantigua-Williams:
I want to make sure that we clarify that this is not about paranormal activity. The inquiry is really about how we’re wired.
Dessa: Yeah. Very much so.
Lantigua-Williams:
Talk me through some of the things that you’ve discovered in this process about how we’re wired, and have you come as an artist to understand even your own creativity in a different way because of it?
Dessa: Yeah. It’s a good distinction. You know, part of what I wanted to do was to try to find the dovetail intersection of really rigorous science, but also with really rigorous artistic storytelling, because I think sometimes there is this partition between those two fields now where it’s like, “Science is always very serious.” And smart things are always serious. Poetry is not hilarious. Poetry is serious. And the things that are funny and are entertaining, those things aren’t smart are intellectual. We have this sort of… I don’t know. This impermeable membrane between those things. And I don’t think that’s necessary at all. I think that sheet can come right down. And so, a lot of the questions that we pose in each episode, they’re questions that I personally had. Trying to figure out how my own brain worked.
There was one episode that… the subject of which I didn’t select. It was selected or suggested by another producer. It was about menopause. That one has changed the way that I think about the way my own life will unfold and that I think about trying to be a better friend and companion to the women in it. There’s just so much we don’t talk about, about menopause, and I get it that like… Okay, it references the reproductive system. I get it. We’re all puritans. But like yo, people are experiencing these huge, enormous parts of their lives that they’re just not allowed to talk about in public. That’s ridiculous. That’s just dumb. And it’s an uncharitable way to build a culture. It’s stupid. And I… Listening to women talk about… It was fascinating to me, about the way that they could… meta cognition, essentially. The way that they could feel their brains working differently. How the thoughts unfolded in different ways. How they maneuvered differently through the world was fascinating to me.
Lantigua-Williams:
Wow.
Dessa: And also, we have a lot in common with whales with menopause, which I hadn’t anticipated.
Lantigua-Williams:
Okay, don’t give that way. That’s just too good a teaser. So, I mean, I’m obviously gonna be listening, but what do you hope your listener, and I ask this of all creators when they’re making things for other people, which as much as you enjoy this process, you’re making this for other people. So, what do you want the listener to take away and come back for as they listen episode to episode?
Dessa: Okay, so I would say like maybe one little thing and one big thing. The little thing would be I’m always a fan of shows or books where you feel like you are snipping out a little excerpt to win your next cocktail party. Like, “Oh, this is gonna play.” You know, like this is a great little anecdote, or this is a great little factoid. I am gonna crush it. I like that.
And then the bigger one would be I know this sounds… or I guess this might sound sentimental or cheesy, but I honestly believe that the truth does its own work. Telling true stories will resonate differently with the people who hear them because we all have different experiences. But I really do trust, like true stories, and solid research will help us be more compassionate people, to understand what confuses us about the behavior we see around us, both in the people we love and the people that we don’t love at all. Like a more compassionate understanding of the world.
Lantigua-Williams:
Tell us where we can listen, tell us how we can listen, et cetera.
Dessa: So, the podcast again is called Deeply Human, and comes out every week. You can find it wherever pods are cast. And also, I’ll just say as a listener to this show, I call my mother ma, and I call my dad dad. Until his father died, and then I started calling him pop, because that was the word that he’d used for his own father.
Lantigua-Williams:
Oh, that’s so sweet. That’s really sweet. Thank you for adding that. You are amazing. You know that I’m your biggest fan, so thank you so much for coming on our show.
Dessa: Thanks for having me.
Lantigua-Williams:
You can find Deeply Human everywhere you listen to podcasts, so wherever you listen to us, you can listen to Deeply Human. The first episode is already out.
How to Talk to [Mamí and Papí] About Anything is an original production of Lantigua Williams & Co. Virginia Lora produced this episode. Kojin Tashiro mixed it. Manuela Bedoya is our social media editor. Cedric Wilson is our lead producer. Jen Chien is our executive editor. I’m the show’s creator, Juleyka Lantigua-Williams. On Twitter and Instagram, we’re @TalktoMamiPapi. Please subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, everywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts. Bye, everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua-Williams, Juleyka, host. “Rapper Dessa Unravels the Rhyme and Reason in Our Very Human Nature”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] About Anything,
Lantigua Williams & Co., March 22, 2021. TalkToMamiPapi.com.