Rachele Cermak | Life Stream & Portfolio

Hip-Hop/Spoken Word Issue, June/July 2009, Page 9, Groove

On the first Monday of every month the Artists’ Quarter in Saint Paul, Minn., hosts a slam poetry night. I watch Desdamona, tonight’s featured poet, prepare to address the audience. An hour earlier, as we sat in the Great Waters restaurant, she told me she’d be performing new material nobody’s ever heard before. She felt a little nervous because it had been awhile since she performed without all of the bells and whistles incorporated with music. But tonight presented the perfect venue to promote her new spoken word album, titled “Inkling,” scheduled to be released in May. As she took to the stage, she emitted pure confidence and composure, a true veteran of the craft.

Desdamona has been performing spoken word in the Twin Cities since 1997. Her first encounter with a St. Paul mic was at Jazzville. As she recalled the night, she said that she was one of only four people performing. She had shared one poem and one piece designated to be a hip-hop song. That night a man name Black Power insisted that she come back because the next week, more people would be at the club and they needed to hear her. That was her first introduction into the world of performance poetry, she said.

Before moving to the Twin Cities, Desdamona grew up in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Small town may be stereotypically known for rambunctious teens getting into trouble, but Desdamona never took part in the negative distractions that could have slowed her down. Instead, she stayed focused on the creative outlets her school had to offer like dance, choir, and band, anything that allowed her to express herself.

“It’s so easy to get lost in all the things that are going on, and to have that creative outlet, it can help ground you,” she said. She advises that everyone needs to find a creative outlet because it helps form the person you are by boosting confidence and self-esteem and by promoting consistency.

Desdamona said that being consistent has helped her overcome some of her career struggles. One of the biggest obstacles in her career was getting over the desire to want everyone to like what she does. She knows that even if others don’t like what she does, if she’s consistent, at least they’ll respect her.

“I can’t make someone like me. I am who I am,” Desdamona said. “You either take it or leave it. It’s important to learn not to be upset over it. We don’t all have to get along but we also don’t have to be mean to each other. And, at least let each other live.”

Standing on the stage, the room silenced as she spoke. The first piece she read wasn’t exactly what I had expected from her. As she warned, she was going to switch it up tonight. The words caressed the audience softly and a round of applause filled the jazz bar’s dim-lit air.

Being a woman in Hip-hop and spoken word, said Desdamona, gender has definitely been a factor in her career. As a woman, people assume she’s in the background. When on stage with a man, people automatically thinking she must be his wife or girlfriend instead of his musical partner. At shows, sound technicians treat her differently because she’s female.

“Hey, I’m a professional,” she said. “I know what I’m doing… I’m here and I’m getting paid to do this. It’s not like I have to shove it in someone’s face, but it shows that we’re just not on the same plane.”

This frustration has motivated her to work with young women to build their skills so they can collectively contribute more to the hip-hop scene and the overall community.

Desdamona spends a lot of time going into schools to teach and lead workshops with youth.

“When a kid realizes their voice is powerful, that they can do something, they can create a change, and that people will listen to them, it just does something for self-esteem,” she said.

Desdamona also has a passion for helping the next generation grow into a positive, proactive group. This is part of the reason why she helped found the B-Girl Be summit in the Twin Cities. The festival, which operatss through Intermedia Arts, was conceived in 2005 and brought together women who practice the four main elements of hip-hop: breakdancing, graffiti art, emceeing and disc scratching and mixing. The festival hasn’t been held since 2007 and has an unknown future, but has influenced young women three years in a row.

“I never wanted B-girl Be to last forever,” Desdamona explained. She said she wanted it to build a female identity in the scene. And now that it’s happened, she wants to see some of those younger girls start to do their own thing.

While B-Girl Be isn’t around in its original convention, the founding members are further developing the portion of the summit that focused on creating curriculum to bring into schools. But with the tough economic times, everything is at a bit of a standstill, Desdamona said.

One festival that is going strong is the We B-Girlz Berlin festival. Desdamona was asked to be a performer at the show in 2008. Many of the same artists from B-Girl Be were there, and people couldn’t stop talking about the Minneapolis event. Desdamona expressed excitement about the buzz and was surprised by the audience turnout at the Berlin event.

“More male supporters were there,” she said. “Here [in Minneapolis], guys were like, ‘Can we come if it’s all girls?’ And I’m like, that’s such a silly question. Am I invited to your shows? Yes. It’s not like because it’s all guys on stage that only guys can come. But over in Berlin it wasn’t even an issue. There were tons of guys there and totally into it. I thought, ‘Wow, I wish we could see this in Minneapolis.’”

The gender barrier isn’t the only problem Desdamona can see surfacing in the Minneapolis area. Negative competition between performers occasionally rears its head. It’s one thing to have competition that motivates someone to push themselves and do better, said Desdamona, but it’s another to trample over your peers because of the fear that there is limited opportunity.

Desdamona’s next goal is to travel more, whether it be because of her music or in support of her other endeavors. In late April, she went to Seattle to attend the Langston Hughes African-American Film Festival where a film of B-Girl Be was featured. She is currently planning to go on tour and play in New York, Seattle and California, but no dates are set yet.

With the release of “Inkling” in May and big plans to travel in the near future it seems as though none of that enters her mind as she recites her piece, “Miss America,” to a crowd of local slam poetry enthusiasts. As the last breath is exhaled and the end of the night draws near, the 40 or so people respectfully hoot and holler at a woman who has done so much to make a name for women in the scene. She smiles because she receives these sounds as a symbol of praise, admiration and respect for everything she has done in her career. And I cheer loudly to thank her.