Up First from NPR - The Sunday Story: Tiny Desk, Big Stage

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

Since its debut in 2008, NPR's Tiny Desk has become a must-stop destination for music superstars like Taylor Swift and Alicia Keys but also for lesser-known musicians, including those who compete in the annual Tiny Desk contest. Today on The Sunday Story host Ayesha Rascoe talks to senior producer Bobby Carter about the Tiny Desk series, how it has evolved over time and how the Tiny Desk contest has opened the door to the music industry for many artists.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Just a warning that some of the song lyrics in today's show may include language that some may find offensive. How's everybody doing? That's pretty good, sizable applause there. That was pretty good. Thank you everybody for coming out again. This is weird as hell for me. In October of 2014, the artist T-Pain showed up at the studios of NPR for a Tiny Desk concert. Never done anything like this. Didn't think you guys were going to be here, but I guess we're doing this. So the audience was expecting to hear classic T-Pain, his trademark auto-tuned voice with its robotic-like pitch, singing over a hip-hop beat that gets the club moving.

I know everybody's wondering where the auto-tune is going to come from. It's okay, I got it in my pocket. It's totally fine. You got it right here. It's all surgically inserted. But there was no auto-tune setup, no DJ playing beats, just T-Pain to sing like that. And this moment when a hip-hop artist known for making club hits is in this stripped-down setting, well, it went viral and quickly became the most-viewed Tiny Desk show at the time. For both T-Pain and Tiny Desk, this concert showed that they could do something different, stretch out, and reach new heights. Oh, Bella. Oh, oh.

I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday Story. Ha! Weird as hell! All right. So, Tiny Desk has become a bucket list stop, not just for established artists like T-Pain, but for those trying to make a name for themselves. And that brings us to the Tiny Desk Contest. This annual competition draws thousands of entrants and it's become a huge launching pad for once undiscovered artists. This year, the Tiny Desk Contest is celebrating its 10th anniversary. Joining me to talk about it and all things Tiny Desk is senior producer Bobby Carter. Bobby, thanks for being here. It's so good to talk to you, Aisha. How are you feeling? I'm feeling good. All right,

all right. Now, you're behind a lot of this. I have tried explaining what Tiny Desk is to people who have never heard of it, and even some of those that have seen it. But they're confused as to why an artist would want to come to sing in an office space. And it really is an office space. Yes, right. So for those listening who've never heard or seen one of these performances, what is a Tiny Desk concert and what makes them so special? So yeah, Tiny Desk is the brainchild of Bob Boylan and Stephen Thompson. They started in 2008 when they met with an artist at South by Southwest who was performing

at a small, loud venue where no one could hear what she was doing. And they almost jokingly invited her to play a concert at Tiny Desk, and she obliged. And the best way to describe a Tiny Desk concert is it's a mini performance in the offices of NPR, minus all of the bells and whistles, minus the monitors and the dancers and the electronic beats. And what you have is an intimate experience with an artist in a way that you've never, ever seen before. So we started by talking about the famous T-Pain Tiny Desk concert in 2014. That was an early moment for Tiny Desk. So what made that show so special? Well, I always, even to this day, I think that T-Pain is the best example of what a Tiny Desk is in its essence. His signature was auto-tune,

which is completely electronically based. So we asked our producer, the producer, Franny Kelly, who brought T-Pain to the tiny desk, asked him if he would be open to performing vocally without auto-tune. And much of his fan base had never heard him do that but what you what we found was t-pain is an exceptional singer without it yeah people didn't know that yes like people

thought he couldn't sing right he would and and it was it was quite the opposite it was so it was a combination of that aha moment that moment of oh my goodness he doesn't even need autotune. He's just using it, you know, as his calling card is what he was known for. But in fact, he can sing better than so many of his contemporaries. So that was the big moment for us where we discovered that not only that hip hop and R&B belonged at the tiny desk. We dipped our toe in the water at the time, but we didn't really, we had yet to really delve in. T-Pain helped to kick that door open for us. Let's speed it up a little bit. I thought I thought I thought I thought I thought I thought I thought I thought I thought I thought I put it going up I ain't got no problem spending all of my money trying to see what's up I can do this all day like it ain't nothing there was also a certain amount of awkwardness to that

performance that really made him relatable and human and and you got to see how funny he is I always think it's it's best like when you feel awkward to like acknowledge it and then people feel like they're in it with you, you know? Absolutely. I mean, that's another piece of the magic that is Tiny Desk is that for the most part, these concerts are filmed raw, not much in post-production when it comes to editing things out. We usually get these done in one take for the most part. So in that, you get glimpses of the artist's personality. Unlike a late show performance or a morning show where you hear just one song,

they perform, they do their thing, and they get off stage. Here, you get 15 to 20 minutes. And in between songs, sometimes the artists share what's on their heart. And what you had with T-Pain was his awkward humor. You know what I mean? And it's almost like we were walking the tightrope with him. Just, we're going to try this. We're going to see what happens.

And here goes nothing. So that was another part of what made this show so memorable. I can do this all day like it ain't nothing. But that was another part of what made this show so memorable. I can do this all day like it ain't nothing. Okay, so what are some personal highlights that you've either produced or been around for? Well, since we've been around now for so long, there's a handful of shows that sort of sit in the tiny desk stratosphere, whether the Mac Millers, the Anderson Pax, the Erykah Badu's. And I've been a part of all of those. But we also have some that just created like you know it was the the discovery moments when we we talk about awkward moments or moments where we get glimpses of

a person's humanity like i think about summer walker who was so shy who was so almost to the point we had to ask her to just can you look at the camera a little bit? But in that, the vocal performance was just over the top. It was effortless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I still play that song. A studio session, what, threw away your love letters? Yeah, and it's just like... Thought it made me feel better, child. Right, but it's just like the way she delivered it, it's just god-given talent it's just in her but on the outside she was completely shy she was nervous so it's i think it's just something to see that from an artist to to remind us that these are just human beings who happen to be

exceptionally talented you know Through a wake your love let us I Thought it'd make me feel better I Finally got you out my bed But I still can't get you out of my head. You mentioned Anderson.Paak. Talk about why that particular show stood out. Well, it's still one of a kind in the fact that we've never had a drummer singing lead, sitting behind the drum kit, singing at a high level, rapping at a high level, personality bursting all over the space.

I think this song is appropriate, being that it's like Asana in here right now. Y'all niggas got me hot. If you know this shit, sing along. Niggas got me hot. Hey, well that's exactly where the nigga came from. You taking shots from afar, I'ma meet you at your front door. What I remember with that when I booked them is that, you know, obviously Anderson.Paak, he was just on his second album. He was virtually unknown. It was beginning to bubble. It was definitely he definitely had a buzz, but they didn't realize and we didn't either what that video would become.

So starting out like they were very I don't want to say nonchalant, but they were they you know, they didn't have a lot of rest. They were still kind of hungover. They had little to no expectations from the performance. And when Anderson.Paak came back years later to support the band on their, for their album. So he came back a few years later, you know, they said, I had no idea that this would be our biggest music video to date. It's crazy. We spent a bunch of money, like hundreds of thousands of dollars on videos and big budget videos just to have our biggest video be in front of a tiny desk in the office. And it's still a favorite amongst so many people out there. So I imagine that there are artists, big name or not, who you're excited to see.

And some of them may live up to that, but some of them may not live up to that. Can you think of a performance that really took you by surprise or did something unexpected? I think for the most part, since our team, we so good at um delivering the message to the artists and teams before they get in there so they aren't it's not completely unexpected we always let them know like listen whatever you're used to doing on stage once you come into this building it is going to be the complete opposite this is not a sound stage which many artists think it is. This is an office and a real desk, real shelves, real NPR employees. Yeah. And they always are shocked by that because they're like, this is like really a desk. Like people, yes, people really sit here. I mean, I worked on,

I still work on the same floor, but I work right across the hall from it. Yeah. And the coolest thing to see is when we bring the artists up and they walk around the corner and they get that first glimpse of the desk and we get one or two reactions. Either you have an artist who's a massive fan of the platform already and they're just in awe of the space, or you get those that aren't that familiar with the space and they look like, oh, this is just a desk.

But the unexpected moments when I think about when we brought her to the tiny desk, her tiny desk really threw me off because she was a guest vocalist for Daniel Caesar's Tiny Desk a few months prior to her own solo Tiny Desk. And when she was with Daniel Caesar in the space, she was very quiet and shy and unassuming and almost out of the way. But when she came back months later, she was like a completely different person, mission driven. And she was just like a maestro. She knew exactly what she wanted to do. And, you know, and she was just all over the space flexing. She was on the keys. She was on the guitar and she was composing everything and just those arrangements. She was like a completely new person. That set the precedent for everything that happened after that. All of the stages that she graced

and people really began to figure out just how brilliant of an artist her is. I'm gonna lose What if nothing ever will change I'm caught between your love and a hard place I wish there was a right way I'm caught between your love and a hard place We mentioned some big hip-hop moments, and I would imagine at first that was there some reluctance to play in a space where you don't necessarily have a hype man. You know, hip hop, like the way people perform, you don't have like a backup track.

And I think a lot of people don't realize like the breath control it takes to like really hit every word. Like that's. Yeah, it takes a lot. Yeah. I mean, you know, and it's it's such a it is a talent. It's a gift. Everybody can't do it. Can you talk about, like, how hip-hop has come to embrace, like, Tiny Desk?

I think, to me, hip-hop is always what I think is the challenge that's most fun at the Tiny Desk because it's not live music or live instrument based for the most part. When you think about early hip hop, you think about beat machines and DJs and loud, hard hitting. So I get the most, I'm fulfilled the most when we really, really nail a hip hop tiny desk, because in many ways, that's the biggest adjustment for most artists, because that's not the way they originally recorded these songs. So with hip-hop Tiny Desk, you usually almost get a completely new interpretation of the records and you make them new. When you think about what Juvenile did with Back That Ass Up, we've heard that song for 30 years and we've never heard that music interpreted in that way at the tiny desk.

We watch all of these shows online. But what does it feel like to be on the production side of things? Because you have artists in all different genres and then you have the videos breaking all these records. Like, what does it feel like to be on the side of that's making this happen well uh surreal is the word i always think about because um these are artists that many of which i've grown up with many of which i've looked up to and then for the others they're artists that i hope that we that Desk can help to propel them and to see that on so many different occasions. I'm just blessed to be in that space

because I love the work so much and I love music so much. And I love when we pull those special moments throughout the performance. Like when Anderson.Paak, when they wrapped their show, they immediately said, wow, we should do that more often. Or Charlie Wilson, when he was in the green room, he got emotional because he hadn't performed like that in so long. So I can pull any number of moments where it's just like, I can't believe I get to do this every day. Outro Music You're listening to the Sunday Story. We'll be right back. Now, our change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to our change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force two dollar coin today.

When I walked into my first tiny desk, I did not expect for all those work people to be there. For some reason, I thought that you were going to do it and only the recorder was going to be there. I remember feeling excited and reflective of the past few years that led up to my win. So many of my favorite songwriters and musicians played in that space. During the pandemic, I watched an NPR Tiny Desk concert every single day in order to get out of bed. And my life has changed so much since then, and I still can't really believe

that this is all real. We're back with the Sunday Story, and that was past Tiny Desk Contest winners Tank of Tank and the Bangas, Neffy, and Alisa Amador. We're talking with Bobby Carter, the senior producer of NPR's Tiny Desk series, about the Tiny Desk concertert Series and its cultural impact. So this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Tiny Desk Contest. Tell us, how does the contest work? Well, the contest is our search for the next independent undiscovered artist. We open the window.

It's a certain window of time where we allow artists from the 50 United States and Puerto Rico to submit a video of themselves performing one song, one original song. We only require that a desk is in the shot and they play one original song and they give us their best shot. I did not know that you had to have a desk in your submission. Yeah. So are you the one going through all of these submissions? And like about how many do you typically get? I'm one of.

I'm one of the people. We have a small, mighty team going through thousands, thousands and thousands of videos from artists around the country. We have multiple rounds with various judges. Part of the judging panel includes artists who have played the tiny desk before. We have member station hosts. And this year, an exciting addition. We're going to have industry professionals as part of the judging panel. And they offer a very unique perspective. So I'm really, really excited about that this year. But we narrow it down. We have multiple rounds and we narrow it down to one. We all hop into a some usually a Zoom room and we hash it out. You know, sometimes it takes one one meeting. Sometimes it takes two

or three to hash it out. But we get there. Let's talk about Little Moon. That was last year's winner. What was it about their audition tape that stood out to y'all? Their song Wonder Eye, it was an explosion of emotion. It was, I like to call it a kick in the chest in the best way. The song Wonder I starts sort of melancholy and gentle and the harp sounds and just a gentle vocal with some harmonies and about 30 seconds to a minute into the song, it just kicks into this hard, emotional and beautiful explosion with a lot of meaning behind it. And they were, for the first time in a long time, they were the unanimous vote amongst the judges. It was such a beautiful song, and it was just, it was undeniable. Count up on fingers all my days to the minute. Mmm, mmm.

Time getting shorter now the longer I'm in it. Mmm, mmm. To where we are and where we go Wonder I, wonder I And when I go, I'll give my all To the sky, to the sky to the sky wonder

I wonder I Is it a tale that we make true in the telling of of

of of the telling Is there a knowledge that is found not in knowing To where we are and where we'll go One new I, one new I And where I go Who are some of the other contest winners that stand out over the years?

Well, our first winner, Fantastic Negrito, really set a bar. It was like being in a library. It was like you were chilling at someone's house, just sitting around the table playing together. And that was a warm experience. I was, however, surprised at how many people were in the room when I looked up, but it was, again, life-changing. Lost in a crowd. You feel your thoughts out loud.

Lost in the wilderness of the sound. Get through the day. Don't drown. Life, it goes fast. Youth is gone. Feelings of loss. Come on. Grieve.

Move on. Stuck in the shadows. Once I did Tiny Desk, you know, the whole world knew about me. And I owe so much to NPR Tiny Desk, the whole world knew about me, and I owe so much to NPR Tiny Desk. Grammy Award winning Fantastic Greedo, by the way. But we also have Tank and the Bangers, who we heard from earlier. Neffy, Galen Lee, who also has written and composed for Broadway. Linda Diaz, Lisa Amador.

So many artists that we're so, so proud of who have gone on to do great things. What do you know about what it's like for the people that have won? I know there's a tour. What else do they get out of it? Most of these artists, this is like their first big foray, their first big leap into a full time career in music. Right. So it's exciting to see because we hop right on the road not too long after they win. So to watch them perform in front of a big crowd for the very first time. It's the sweetest experience because they feel all the love. They're learning in real time what this experience is like

after we put this big spotlight on them. This year, we're going to provide some mentorship opportunities for the winner because, you know, after having conversations with quite a few artists who have entered the contest or a couple of winners, you know, Tiny Desk is a huge spotlight. And the artist has to be ready for that. Part of that is our responsibility, because obviously we're the ones that are shining this huge spotlight. So we want to try to help them kind of, you know, you know, it can be a rough road out there. So we want to do our best to whether it's holding their hand or walking arm in arm

to help them navigate this music industry. You know, we've been talking about the contest, but going back to the Tiny Desk concert series, like, how do you feel like it's evolving musically?

Not just at the level of artists that you can get and bring, but I guess like sonically the sound of it. How has that changed? People are becoming more creative and there's a level of friendly competition amongst the artists. I mean, they look at what's going on. So it's always fun to see the way the artists challenge themselves, the way the artists try to reinvent themselves. A good example I can think of is when we've had the artist Sampha at the Tiny Desk a couple times. And the first time he came, it was just solo. It was Sampha sitting at the piano and the keyboard, just playing a beautifully emotional and a gripping performance that that that captured that just pulled you in. So when he came back last year, he totally flipped. He came back almost as a new artist and that, you know, we tend to not bring an artist back a second time.

It's very, very rare. But when we do, the general rule of thumb is you have to do something completely different. And that's exactly what he did. He came with a full band this time, and each member of the band, they had at least three tasks. So the keyboard player had to also play percussion, and everybody had to sing. And then the very last song, they all sort of surrounded a drum kit and played the drums and sang in the finale. So I love the way that artists are trying to top the next one and trying to really, really hop out of their comfort zone

to be as creative as possible. I love to see that. We are looking forward to hearing more from you and the Tiny Desk team in 2024. And of course, to finding out who will be the winner this year. Thank you for joining us. No, of course to see you at more time. How are we going to fix that? I want to get there.

First of all, I need some child care, and I need... I think the last time I saw you, you had the kids at the Tiny Desk for Sesame Street. Yeah, for Sesame Street. I had the kids there. They love that. Yes. And so you can see my kids in the Sesame Street Tiny Desk. Greetings, everyone, and welcome to Tiny Desk.

Yes. Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood? In your neighborhood? In your neighborhood? This episode of The Sunday Story was produced by Justine Yan, Abby Wendell, and Andrew Mambo. It was edited by Jenny Schmidt.

The engineer for this episode was Josh Newell. Our team includes Liana Simstrom, Justine Yan, and our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. If this episode piqued your interest and you would like to get more information about this year's Tiny Desk Contest, please visit npr.org backslash tinydeskcontest. I'm Aisha Roscoe. Up First is back in your feed tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend.