JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
It has been an enormous yr for NPR’s Tiny Desk Live performance sequence. From enormous names like Submit Malone and Maluma to rising artists like Tiny Desk Contest winner Little Moon, there have been dozens of unimaginable performances this yr. We have given a couple of of our colleagues from NPR Music the troublesome activity of choosing their favorites of 2023. Kicking us off is NPR Music author and host Stephen Thompson.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: We did greater than 100 Tiny Desk Live shows this yr, so even narrowing down a Prime 10 appears not possible. However it’s attainable to choose only one favourite as a result of that is the yr we lastly put out a Tiny Desk Live performance with Gwar.
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GWAR: Hey.
THOMPSON: Gwar is a long-running heavy metallic band whose members are all intergalactic monsters. Folks consider Gwar as nearly probably the most over-the-top band on Earth, and the thought of bringing them to the Tiny Desk created a variety of promise.
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GWAR: (Singing) I received a monkey fish. I received a cool fish. I received a pig log, dig canine, turkey log, corny cob, bing-bang, ding-dong, slappy-wappy wing wam. Intercourse cow.
THOMPSON: At the same time as they have been singing these raunchy songs with titles like “Intercourse Cow,” there was one thing nonetheless sort of weirdly healthful about it. It wasn’t household pleasant in any respect, nevertheless it wasn’t that totally different from after we had the gang from Sesame Avenue present up.
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GWAR: (Singing) Intercourse cow, (screaming).
(CHEERING)
THOMPSON: Gwar is that this very excessive band, and but they nonetheless sort of got here in with the thought of assembly us on our stage. And so at one level they did, like, an NPR fundraising drive. They made jokes about Terry Gross.
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BALSAC THE JAWS OF DEATH: Terry freaking Gross.
BLOTHAR: Hey, hey, watch your mouth.
BALSAC THE JAWS OF DEATH: No, she’s…
BLOTHAR: Why are you calling folks names?
BALSAC THE JAWS OF DEATH: No, she is a Gross. She comes from an extended line of Grosses.
BLOTHAR: Terry Gross is a nationwide treasure, so that you shut your lure.
THOMPSON: And I simply thought it was so candy in a means that they sort of took the task at face worth and had enjoyable with it.
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GWAR: (Singing) I will be your monster, child.
(CHEERING)
THOMPSON: , I’ve heard lots of people describe the Gwar Tiny Desk as, like, the top of Tiny Desk Live shows, like, one thing so outrageous and stunning that it could actually’t be topped.
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GWAR: (Singing) Hiding beneath your mattress. Higher sleep with the sunshine on, sugar – been awhile since I fed.
THOMPSON: To me, I do not see it as a pinnacle. I see it as a place to begin. , I personally have a few very silly and peculiar and humorous concepts for Tiny Desk Live shows and I am only one man on the crew, you realize? So I see Gwar not as an achievement a lot as a promise for 2024 and past.
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GWAR: (Singing) I will eat you up I really like you so.
(CHEERING)
ANAMARIA SAYRE, BYLINE: Hey, that is Anamaria Sayre. I am the host of NPR Music’s Alt.Latino. And my favourite Tiny Desk second from this yr was the legend – (talking Spanish) – Ivy Queen’s Tiny Desk.
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IVY QUEEN: (Talking Spanish). Let me take you to my motherland – Puerto Rico, that’s – OK?
(CHEERING)
IVY QUEEN: Hey. You right here? (Talking Spanish).
SAYRE: Ivy Queen is an absolute legend. She is among the first females who took reggaeton massive from Puerto Rico. It is an enormous deal that she got here to play for us as a result of she’s primarily somebody who helped create the style that a variety of us are actually so aware of.
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IVY QUEEN: (Singing in Spanish).
SAYRE: Lots of people battle with adapting their music to the Tiny Desk as a result of no in-ears, no screens, and you bought to create these percussive beats that, for reggaeton particularly, are so important to what make it thrilling, to what make folks need to transfer. And so when folks got here by way of and so they noticed the setup for Ivy Queen, everybody stored asking me, the place are the drums, the place are the drums? And I stored saying, don’t be concerned, simply wait. It is Ivy. She will do something. And certain sufficient, with no drums, with only a piano, strings and her voice, she carried the vitality of a dembow beat.
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IVY QUEEN: (Vocalizing).
(CHEERING)
IVY QUEEN: (Talking Spanish). One, two, three – let’s go.
(CHEERING)
IVY QUEEN: (Talking Spanish).
SAYRE: Oh, my God, it is taking me again to that second. I imply, to listen to “Quiero Bailar” – it is, like, the music that you just placed on if you actually need that pump-up, if you actually need to be ok with your self, about being a girl. And to listen to her do it, simply unimaginable.
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IVY QUEEN: (Rapping in Spanish).
SAYRE: She was not afraid by any means to say what she was considering, which feels very becoming for an artist like herself as a result of to be a pioneer within the area, to be an Ivy Queen, to be a girl who’s taken critically as a rapper, as a reggaetonera, I imply, you must put on the whole lot you assume and also you say in your sleeve. And on this Tiny Desk particularly, she confirmed up along with her actions and confirmed that she’s not all speak and he or she’s actually all work and sport and hustle. And he or she brings that female and feminist vitality to our stage, and that is superb.
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IVY QUEEN: (Rapping in Spanish).
(CHEERING)
BOBBY CARTER, BYLINE: My identify is Bobby Carter and I am the sequence producer for the Tiny Desk. And developing on the finish of the yr, the spotlight for me is Scarface’s Tiny Desk. A daring assertion is that Scarface has the very best hip-hop Tiny Desk that we have ever recorded.
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SCARFACE: (Rapping) I received this love forming in my life for this dame, and certainly took the type of life. And that is a disgrace, how a person can fall in love what leaves and never a mind, not afraid to allow you to up and depart him.
CARTER: Scarface is one-third of a legendary hip-hop group, the Geto Boys. After which within the early ’90s, Scarface went solo, and that is when he actually blossomed. I feel the factor that units him aside from so most of the different greats is his potential to inform tales.
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SCARFACE: (Rapping) Pleased simply to listen to your identify. I would like to listen to you say.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary.
CARTER: Tales of his upbringing, the tales of road life however in a weak sense. He is your favourite rapper’s favourite rapper, so he is only a legend within the sport – 30, 40 years, nonetheless doing it.
(CHEERING)
CARTER: There was an element on “I Seen A Man Die” – and that music is strolling you thru somebody really leaving the bodily life – and it is a bone-chilling second.
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SCARFACE: (Rapping) He greets his father together with his arms out, rehabilitated barely, glad to be the person’s little one. The world is totally different since he is seen it final – out of jail, been seven years, and he is glad that he is free finally.
CARTER: He actually advised vivid tales from a viewpoint that Black males and folks in hip-hop have been simply not used to listening to. He actually delved right into a darkness that many people have been afraid to discuss.
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SCARFACE: (Rapping) And the life you used to stay will mirror in your mom’s face. And I nonetheless received to marvel why I ain’t by no means seen a person cry until I seen that man die.
CARTER: Yeah, if there was ever any doubt about Scarface’s place in historical past, this Tiny Desk cemented all of it.
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UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) By no means seen a person cry until I seen a person die.
CARTER: If I may, I simply – trying again on this yr on the Tiny Desk, for my part, this was the very best yr that we have ever had. There have been so many reveals that related to our viewers in a particular means this yr. Like, I can go on and on and on. And it is simply that little nook is the place greatness and magic occurs.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
That was NPR Music’s Bobby Carter, Anamaria Sayre and Stephen Thompson.
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