My time as a choir kid in the ’90s and ’00s meant I immediately pressed play on Kirk Franklin’s Tiny Desk, which served as the final performance in Tiny Desk’s celebration of Black History Month. This Tiny Desk (home) concert felt like the perfect introduction to her music. The combination of Rae Khalil’s epic bellbottoms with the location she chose for her Tiny Desk (home) concert - a bright and colorful coffee shop - really keeps me coming back to this show. Lous and the Yakuza’s Tiny Desk (home) concert is a favorite of mine because it’s everything I miss about live music: a storyteller behind the mic, prominent bass and effortless harmonies in a location that is as captivating as Lous herself. What makes this concert so special is Jazmine’s impressive vocal performance - oh, how she can sing - and the band’s exquisite musicianship, the high production quality of the audio mix, the videography and beautiful lighting softly focused on Jazmine. Four songs illustrating the album’s narrative - women’s stories and struggles around sex, our bodies, relationships and more - are featured here. Jazmine Sullivan’s Heaux Tales is NPR Music’s album of the year and her Tiny Desk is one of our favorites as well. No one understands this more than the staff at NPR Music: Here are just a handful of some of their favorite Tiny Desk (home) performances of 2021.
The range of artists and locations in the nearly 200 Tiny Desk (home) concerts published this year, as well as the sneak peak of life back in the office with Tiny Desk Contest winner Neffy, gives the series as a whole a new life, a new meaning and new outlook on the world of music. From a high school in Virginia to an avant-garde studio in Melbourne to a performance space in Lagos to a room full of family in Madrid, the Tiny Desk has never been more regionally expansive as it was this year. It’s hard to think of a place where so many people once gathered to celebrate and dance and sing along to their favorite artists as being lonesome - but in spirit, the Tiny Desk has been all over the world.
As we inch towards the end of year two of the pandemic, the literal Tiny Desk - the one that belongs to Bob Boilen himself - remains empty in the NPR HQ.
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