3 Modern Sirens Tackle the Greek Myths

Mother Jones

The word “music” traces back to Greek’s mousike, or “art of the Muses,” those seven goddesses presiding over song, literature, and dance. The muse Euterpe, “giver of delight,” embodied music and lyric poetry; she’d have approved of the following contemporary songbirds, for whom timeless Greek tales inspire and enrich songs about modern life and love.

Dessa
Minneapolis-based Dessa might not fit your stereotype of a rapper: Poised and contemplative, you might find her lecturing on creative writing or feminism in a college classroom, cozying up to a David Foster Wallace novel, or jotting down lyrics in the tattered Moleskine she keeps in her backpack. But that doesn’t mean her latest album, Parts of Speech, is tame. Released June 25, the album offers a potent blend of pop, R&B, and hip-hop strung together by Dessa’s sultry voice and explosive songwriting. (“Call Off Your Ghost,” which you can listen to below, is a case in point.)

Dessa is a poet and former philosophy major, so it’s no wonder Greek characters pop up in some of her songs, such as the the haunting “Beekeeper,” where she sings: “Sweet Prometheus come home / they took away our fire / and all that this scarcity promotes / is desperate men and tyrants.(In Greek mythology, the cunning Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to humans). “I think I go to myths because you get to import a tiny piece of the poetic tradition that you reference,” Dessa says.

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3 Modern Sirens Tackle the Greek Myths

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