No matter how different in style or how connected in contacts and support, every performer has to learn to navigate the booking world and has to learn what works and what doesn’t once they’re given a stage and the trust of a crowd.
But when you’re starting out, those can be the toughest hurdles to overcome and the most difficult lessons to learn.
That’s where bookers like Desiree Yearby come in.
Known on the scene simply as “Dezz,” she’s a booker, a speaker, and a creative organizer that’s helped to shape the landscape of rap and hip-hop in the OKC metro over the past decade, booking shows and festivals, teaching performers how to command a stage and demand attention, and always working to advocate for young artists everywhere from open mics and house shows to helping elevate Oklahoman performers like Bella Burns, Lucious Coldstone, and Original Flow at this year’s Norman Music Festival.
But that prowess and respect as a booker and promoter came to Dezz, as it so often does, on a lark, when a friend reached out unexpectedly for help with booking PlazaFest in OKC.
Dezz: I just spent my time going to concerts just because I really like live music. And she just texted me out of the blue, this is my first time doing anything booking-wise, and she was like “will you help me choose artists for PlazaFest? Because I know that you go to all the concerts, so you will be able to tell me who's good and who's not,”
One, I have relationships with all these artists because I was going to all their shows. And I know who's ready and who hasn't been given the chance.
Brett Fieldcamp: That was an awareness of the scene, and of the artists that were ready for bigger stages and better crowds, that Dezz had already built up through a lifelong love of hip-hop and from her time in the trenches of the scene with rap collective Puzzle People.
When she suddenly found herself on the other side of the table, she wanted to help spotlight and elevate the culture of hip-hop in Oklahoma and to offer those chances to young artists that hadn’t yet been given those opportunities.
Dezz: You have to let people rise to the occasion. But that's what a great booker does, right? They kind of book people who people may not know and they give them a chance to kind of rise to that occasion.
Because how would you know if you're growing unless somebody give you a chance?
Hip-hop is a culture. It embodies, you know, so much. We can always talk about the elements, but it still embodies way more than that.
Brett Fieldcamp: Rather than focusing entirely on the common booking factors like audience draw, fan numbers, and potential drink sales, Dezz says she’s always trying to ensure that there’s a respect and an awareness for the unique diversity of Oklahoma’s culture on stages at any venue, festival, or event that she’s involved in, considering it a responsibility that she always hopes to see from more bookers in the scene.
Dezz: Also, when I started booking, I realized there was a hole on my end, because there are Black and brown artists that apply to a lot of these things, and nobody knows who they are. They don't know if they're good, they don't know what kind of music they'll bring. They don't know what their presence is going to be like.
So I take it upon myself to make sure that anything that I have to with, it has some kind of representation of a Black artist, Native, Latino, or something that really gives a good grasp on Oklahoma City, as far as like, who we are and what we have to offer.
Brett Fieldcamp: So what does Dezz look for in the artists she books, and what can young performers do to get her attention, or the attention of any booker and organizer?
Dezz: Right now, it’s mostly hunger. I want somebody who wants to do music more than anything, because if there's anything in between that, it probably will come in between it, you know?
I just want the proof to be in the pudding somewhere. I tell artists who want to work with me “go to an open mic and invite me.”
I should be able to see everything I need to see there, even if it's not great. I can tell if you're going to be great, because it’s not a lot of artists that do that. Even if I can't book you, we'll figure it out. We'll figure something out, figure out where you at. Maybe it's not me.
But yeah, I need to see something. I can't put all this, you know, behind you and vouch for you in meetings if I've never seen you perform.
Brett Fieldcamp: That passion that she’s looking for in young and rising artists is a well-known feeling for Dezz, because after all the grinding and the going to bat for performers and the pushing for deeper diversity and representation on Oklahoma’s indie stages, she still says that hip-hop is everything, and that her goal is still to bring the power and possibility of that culture to new artists and new audiences.
Dezz: Rap music was there for me when I didn't have anybody, I didn't know where I belonged. I was in a hip-hop group, I found belonging, and I found family, and I found community, and I found purpose. I found all these things.
That’s why I say it is the reason why I'm here, because the version of it, the version of me without it, would be a completely different person.
So that is what keeps me going.
Brett Fieldcamp: You can follow along with Desiree “Dezz” Yearby by following @dezzgotsteeze on Instagram.
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