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Scarface: Tiny Desk Concert

2023-12-26T20:56:37.109Z

Scarface's Tiny Desk concert radiates with his decadeslong passion as an emcee and producer. There's calculated intent behind every word and note of this 30-minute set and I learned that his love for golf also runs deep during our initial meeting. He was playing a round and had difficulty dividing his attention between the plan and the course. Three days before the show, amid rehearsals, I got a call from Facemob asking, "What if I brought Mike Dean?" My expectations were already high, but that final addition set the stage for something special.

Mike Dean provided unmatched authenticity, and their shared stories added sentimental value to this performance. After all, his signature keys and synths can be heard on most of Scarface's classics and countless Rap-A-Lot records. Here, we get a rare glimpse of Scarface the conductor, bouncing through multiple eras of his catalog including "On My Block," "Mary Jane" and the bone-chilling "I Seen a Man Die."

Scarface, along with Rakim, was recently awarded the inaugural Hip-Hop Grandmaster Award from the newly launched Paid in Full Foundation, which includes a sizable financial prize and healthcare. No matter how the never-ending hip-hop greats debate is sliced, the rapper's place is cemented as one of the most influential storytellers in the culture and his Tiny Desk is proof.

SET LIST
"On My Block"
"Mary Jane"
"Smile"
"I Seen a Man Die"
"F**k Faces"
"Mind Playing Tricks on Me"

Tower of Power: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

2023-12-01T00:41:33.613Z

When the 10 members of Tower of Power were in place behind Bob Boilen's desk, strategically positioned around the band's famous five-piece horn section, their first collective blast three beats into the sound check literally made the video crew jump. It was more a force of nature than a sound, and an impressive display of the "five fingers operating as one hand" concept of band cohesiveness.

From the group's beginning in Oakland in 1968, its soul disciples stood out from the peace-and-love scene in the San Francisco Bay. Their dedication to the horn-driven soul heard on recordings from the Stax and Atlantic record labels evolved to such a sophisticated level as to make the Tower of Power Horns an entity unto themselves. Eventually artists as diverse as Santana, the Grateful Dead and even Elton John enlisted them to give their music an authentic connection to the scene.

I have to confess that this show was mostly a labor of self-indulgent love, since I've been a fan since about 1972. So it was a joy to listen to the unmistakable sounds of my youth as the band delivered both "What Is Hip" and "So Very Hard to Go" with so much vitality, it sounded as if they were just written last week. During the performance of the title track from their new album, "The Soul Side of Town," the playing, the passion and the precision remains unchanged after all the years.

1968 was one hell of a year musically, as we've seen from this year's many anniversary celebrations of albums, events and bands. Add Tower of Power to that shortlist of artists for whom that moment was an early rehearsal for what would become a five decade career. A band this big will inevitably have some members come and go, but it's important to note that the original songwriting nucleus of bari saxophonist Stephen "Funky Doctor" Kupa and bandleader/tenor saxophonist Emilio Castillo continue to write and perform, as does original drummer David Garibaldi.

I want to write that the band has become an institution. But that conjures images of stuffy old men looking down professorially on youthful funksters, occasionally showing them how it was done in a long-lost golden era. Instead, Tower of Power remains as vital and full of life-affirming funk and soul, if not more, as they were in 1968. The band's dedication, hard work and connection to us long-time fans prove that a good idea is timeless. If you need proof, just watch this video.

Congrats, fellas. It's been a very soulful 50 years.

Set List
"On the Soul Side of Town"
"So Very Hard to Go"
"What Is Hip?"

Noname: Tiny Desk Concert

2023-11-17T21:24:09.766Z

Out of the thousand and some Tiny Desk concerts to date, it’s seldom an artist returns to the Desk. But when they do, there are a couple requirements: come in a new iteration or present something completely different. In this case, the Chicago-bred, emcee-activist Noname does both when she performs some revolutionary raps from her third album, Sundial, and premieres an unreleased single from hip-hop trio Ghetto Sage, made up of her and frequent collaborators, Smino and Saba.

A lot has changed since Fatimah Warner dropped her classic debut, Telefone, in 2016 and made her first appearance behind the Tiny Desk in 2017. She released a stunning follow-up, Room 25, and she even briefly paused her music career to delve deep into her work as an activist. However, holding a mirror up to herself, her community and the music industry is a signature that persists across her career, and even more so on her album Sundial.

Complemented by her dynamic six-piece band, she performs a few selects from this album including the gospel-infused “Hold Me Down,” which Noname describes perfectly as “a petty love letter to my community.” Then she gets into “Boomboom” featuring the vocalist Ayoni, who delivers a raw and powerful performance. She then invites Smino and Saba up to perform the unreleased “Kush and Love Songs,” delivering clever and conscious bars on top of a swing groove. Concluding the show in true Noname fashion with “Balloons,” she asks the audience: “Where better to do my most controversial song than NPR? Real journalism.”

Nile Rodgers & CHIC: Tiny Desk Concert

2023-11-09T00:27:14.638Z

Before Nile Rodgers & CHIC set the Tiny Desk off, the icon established a sort of mission statement for the group's sound: "If we can funk in this, you know we can funk." They surely can. In stints since 1972, CHIC has assured its position as funk ambassadors — a position its members clearly relish — and no space is resistant to their grooves. When Rodgers asks singer Kimberly Davis to show the audience "how we do it in the CHIC organization," she launches into high-powered vocals that vaporize every note. And when he asks drummer Ralph Rolle to lead them to "maximum funkocity," Rolle ignites call-and-response with an electrified crowd. As the ringleader of the CHIC experience, Rodgers crams a lifetime's worth of nightlife into every strum of his guitar.

Rodgers' career is epic in both scope and impact. The 1979 CHIC album Risqué was a disco milestone that became a hip-hop cornerstone. Standing at inflection points for two different genres is enough to make a career, but Rodgers was far from done. An incomparable songwriter and session musician, his call sheet as a producer is emblematic of his immense range: David Bowie, Diana Ross, Madonna and Mick Jagger, just to name a few. His work is embedded in the very fabric of popular music, and he continues to add to his resume decades after first making changes to the sonic landscape. In 2014, Rodgers won the Grammy for record of the year with Daft Punk. This year, he amassed more honors for his work on Beyoncé's RENAISSANCE.

His wondrous set spans his massive catalog — songs he wrote for CHIC, songs he wrote with collaborators, songs he wrote for other stars and a surprise song he wrote for a classic movie. Throughout, Rodgers is the pulse for an ever-amplifying funk. The band's performance of "I'm Coming Out" builds to a rip-roaring sax solo. A rollicking performance of "We Are Family" breaks down in the middle before erupting to a triumphant finish. And atop the rippling bassline of "Good Times," Rodgers breaks into an impromptu version of "Rapper's Delight," which samples the song. It all leads to the maximum funkocity of Bowie's "Let's Dance," a tribute to the genre's reach and power.

SET LIST
"Le Freak"
"I'm Coming Out"
"We Are Family"
"Get Lucky"
"Good Times"
"Let's Dance"

Noname: Tiny Desk Concert

2023-11-08T23:21:36.421Z

Here's a fun fact about Noname's Tiny Desk Concert: It almost didn't happen. Around the time of their D.C. stop, she (born Fatimah Warner) and her bandmates got their first dose of tour sickness. Thanks to rest, medicine and our mutual excitement, she made her way into the NPR offices the following day. If there ever was a 'Noname' way of doing things, this is definitely her signature method. It's in the way she's able to muster a smile while performing a heartbreaking tale of abortion. It's those sometimes bleak, melancholy lyrics over brilliant, colorful production.

These intriguing juxtapositions are what propelled Telefone to our top 50 albums of 2016. She prefaced her performance of "Reality Check" by saying: "I kind of talk in like, scramble-think, so hopefully you guys follow it." "Scramble-think" refers to the clever metaphors she weaves in detailing the many ways she's dodged destiny. On "Bye Bye Baby," she raps:

Somebody let the yellow in

Bye bye blue

I'm gonna fall in love again

These lyrics, their colors, represent the sector she commands in hip-hop today. The yellow: The bright side. (Of course, there's plenty of gloom and doom to rap about — especially coming from Chicago — but there's also plenty of light.)

There's an appropriate moment of silence in the office, before the applause, following her emotional medley. She asked us if we liked it. We loved it — and you likely will too.