Dessa does the Minneapolis lake walk when she’s not on stage

On stage with the Minnesota Orchestra, Dessa headlines the show. But when she comes home, she blends in with the masses circling the Chain of Lakes.

“‘Lake walk’ is a regional compound noun,” she said. “I don’t think you could ask someone in Washington, D.C.. ‘Do you wanna go on the lake walk’ because that doesn’t make any sense. But I think you can ask that of anyone in the Twin Cities and they would know what you mean.”

The hip-hop singer grew up in south Minneapolis. Dessa said she’s always loved all the green spaces the city has to offer like the Mississippi waterfront and tree-lined boulevards that create shady canopies above zipping cars. Though she’s not a fan of winter, she’ll still bundle up to walk across the cities’ frozen lakes as she takes in the “aesthetic” of fresh snow. Dessa splits her time between Minneapolis and New York City and has worked with musicians from the Doomtree collective to Broadway’s Lin-Manuel Miranda. Her next show is with the Minnesota Orchestra on Nov. 7.

In this edition of “How I Get Outside,” we asked Dessa, 44, more about her affinity for experiencing the outdoors in her hometown. Her responses have been edited for clarity and length:

Q: Do you have a favorite lake?

A: I know that Lake of the Isles is 2.8 miles around and Lake Bde Maka Ska is 3.2 miles so I choose my lakes based on the appropriate calibration of my degree of ambition on that given day. I also grew up next to Lake Nokomis and I think that’s a particularly pretty walk.

Q: What have you learned about yourself on your walk?

For me I think [walking around lakes] is about removing myself from the visual field of my apartment. Feeling my blood move, feeling myself as a body in the world instead of a mind at a computer. It’s more about me changing pace and then physically changing the visual world around me.

I’m also trying to stay healthy in a cardiovascular sense. As a thinking person I’m prone to anxiety and neuroses and all that. The forced regular cadence of a walk, I think I benefit from that.

Q: What was your best day outside? What was your worst?

A: I have really fun memories of being outside when I was a kid. My parents forced me to go outside in the winter. As we know, it’s not my favorite [season], but when I was out there, the secret joy of being a kid and snow-forting with my brother and building this tiny cove, this little mammal den, that we could both inhabit. And when you start to dig enough that the walls of your fort become sufficiently thin, so as to allow the light in and you get that blue glow from the outside world. It’s a pretty magical part of being a kid in Minnesota.

Q: Worst?

Q: What’s your favorite place to be outside in Minnesota?

A: I am a sucker for a wooden walk bridge. I love them so much. But also on any street where the trees canopy and meet overhead. That’s not something that happens in every city. And I think it’s not until you leave Minneapolis that you realize how obscenely lush it is. It is so green and has a lot of old-growth trees. We have green boulevards. Not every city has that in addition to the lakes and the parks and the green spaces. A regular residential street, in a lot of the neighborhoods in Minneapolis, is a really striking scene because of its vegetative splendor.

Q: What’s an outdoor activity you wish you knew how to do?

A: Pickleball is new to me so I’m just learning how to do that. I do want to learn how to air walk so bad. It’s a kind of dance move and it takes a lot of space. It is when someone looks like they’re floating on air or they’re riding an invisible hovercraft.

I think it’s the coolest [thing] that humans have invented, which blows my mind because all it necessitates is a human body.

A: I think hiking and then coming back exactly the same way is overrated. It’s like you just did that. I think any hike that isn’t in a circle, where you get to see something new with every step, I think that’s overrated. Climbing up and climbing right back down, I don’t like that.

Q: You’ve been given the chance to go on your dream outdoor adventure: What is it, and what three people would you bring with you?

A: I would like to go to Puerto Rico because I think it has so much in such a tiny little compact space. There’s the phosphorescent, bioluminescent bays where you swish your arms in the water and it glows. There’s also the El Yunque forest that’s in the center of all these great beaches.