Cydney Grannan
The authors of this piece are producers for The Kojo Nnamdi Show.
It’s a big deal to perform at a tiny desk. That’s the consensus of thousands of bands across the country vying for a chance to play an NPR Music Tiny Desk concert. The concert series features bands playing at the D.C. office of NPR Music’s All Songs Considered amid shelves crammed with books and beneath fluorescent office lighting.
Since launching in 2008, more than 800 bands have played Tiny Desk concerts, including George Clinton & The P-Funk All Stars, Erykah Badu, Wu-Tang Clan, and Toro y Moi. In 2014, NPR Music launched a contest, choosing one band to play both a gig at their studio and to go on tour with NPR (Disclosure: WAMU, which owns DCist, is an NPR member station). In the lead up to the announcement of this year’s winner, the Kojo Nnamdi Show is previewing three local bands and artists in the running. The bands’ performances at WAMU will air on the Kojo show this week, starting Tuesday at 12:30 p.m.
- From: Washington, D.C.
- For fans of: Sade, Stevie Nicks, Valerie June
- Bonus: They wrote their NPR Music Tiny Desk Contest entry, “Lonely Sometimes,” together in a cabin in West Virginia.
One of the first songs singer Cynthia “CJ” Johnson and guitarist and vocalist Andrew Valenti worked on was one Johnson wrote about a woman walking in her boyfriend cheating on her. Valenti asked Johnson what happened to the man from the song and she responded “Oh, he dead,” and they realized they landed on a band name. Since moving from their folky sound toward a funkier genre that they call “indie soul,” the five-piece band noticed audience members grinding on the dance floor, something that didn’t happen when they were playing folk and country. “That just blew my mind,” Valenti told Kojo.
- From: University of Maryland
- For fans of: Anderson .Paak, Childish Gambino, Chance the Rapper
- Bonus: Recently opened for A$AP Ferg and THEY at University of Maryland’s Art Attack.
Don’t call 10issues a band: They’re a collective. Drummer and vocalist Joshua Smalley told Kojo that this means that the hip-hop-meets-jazz group can be less structured than a traditional band, and create a space “where we all bounce ideas off one another, play music, and vibe.” Being a collective also means that the large ensemble can play in different combinations or have individual members go out for paying gigs playing jazz standards. But being a group of 10 has one drawback: finding space to practice. After getting kicked out of one rehearsal space on campus for not being music majors, they now play in a tiny recording studio at WMUC, University of Maryland’s radio station.
- From: Alexandria, Va.
- For fans of: Brent Faiyaz, Jeremih, Trey Songz
- Bonus: Just released the EP Three Tune Kid.
By day, Carlos Valdes is a graphic designer for the Department of Labor. Outside his nine-to-five, he’s Say Solos, a modern R&B crooner. Growing up in a Latino household in Woodbridge, Va., Valdes developed an ear for melodies and rhythms early on. But he started taking his music career more seriously about four years ago at a turning point in his personal life: His mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and he was in the midst of a breakup. A friend at the time asked Valdes what he’d most regret not doing if he was on his deathbed and he said “making music.” Since then he’s been building up beats and backing tracks armed just with a loop machine, a microphone, and his voice, although his latest EP, Three Tune Kid, features background tracks from his friend and fellow musician TF Woo.
