From the opening beats of Onna Deshae’s “Rush” to her breathy vocals, the song exudes effortless cool. Deshae sings about moving through a crowd knowing she’s the object of desire. “Ooo yeah I know you want it, stuck in the crowd and I know that you want in,” she flirts coyly. In the second verse, she slows things down, singing “Don’t judge me by my cover. Come and read me.”
If Onna Deshae is a book, she’s the Pearl Bible referenced in the title of her eight-song project Intro to the Pearl Bible. Just as a sand becomes a pearl with time, so has Deshae become ready to shine with her music. Despite having recorded songs since age 11, she’s finally ready to share them at 24. “I didn’t feel like I was good enough. I was not believing in myself for a piece of time. I was unhappy for a while doing a million other things besides music. I tried to figure out what made me so unhappy,” she says. “In Iowa I started poetry and did spoken competitions. I met a producer and we recorded my first official single in 2018. Two years from there, my confidence was boosted. I had to let go. That’s what it was.”
Deshae also cites her hometown of Chicago as a vital inspiration. “My hometown is what shaped my music to be as it is today. Fresh and unboxable… Chicago is a city that has a way of setting trends from the diverse sounds of Kanye West to my own alluring sounds. Artists from Chicago have been known to pioneer our own way and we set the trends for the rest of the country to follow,” she says proudly. These diverse influences contribute to the depth of Deshae’s music.
Like the rest of the project, “Rush” explores what it’s like to be a woman. “It was about seeing myself as a woman in the things I’m going through day-to-day. People will act like they don’t see you. People try to put you down. People try to act like you’re not shining. But they’re watching you the whole time. At the end of the day, you realize ‘I’m myself. All I can do is appreciate me for who I am and enhance it. I’m gonna be me and accept it more than anyone else. They will fall in line,’” Deshae explains.
The singer’s grandmother encouraged her long ago to write everything down, and Deshae’s writing has benefitted from that. She wrote the lyrics to all the songs on her EP, including the part on “Girl Viral” rapped by Og Casey. Deshae also grew her skills as a lyricist through her participation in spoken word events and plans to include more spoken word poetry on future releases. She also plans to share text components like journal entries.
Listeners are raving about the words to her songs, writing her that they listen over and over to analyze them. “People enjoy taking the time to analyze each song. I’ve found that to be super dope. People want to hear and know every word. They want to know what my message is. Music is art, so it’s something you can analyze. That’s the beauty,” she says gratefully. “That’s been the biggest thing. I’m super grateful for the amount of support that I do have because it’s real support.”
And now? This woman who didn’t believe in herself says “At this point, I’m nonstop! I put 16 songs on the platform and they’re all really dope!”
