NPR Music is celebrating Black Music Month with an array of name new Tiny Desk concert events. Collectively, these artists symbolize the previous, current and way forward for Black music. This month of rigorously curated reveals is a celebration of Black artists expressing themselves in methods we have by no means seen earlier than, and of the Tiny Desk’s distinctive means of showcasing that expertise.

On a fantastically ornate harp and clad in a shocking yellow printed catsuit, Brandee Youthful begins her Tiny Desk with a composition courting again to the 1900s — “Raise Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” colloquially generally known as the “Black Nationwide Anthem” — then transitions into the title monitor of her latest album, Model New Life. This specific transition between previous and current is becoming as Youthful, like harpists Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby earlier than her, has made a profession of showcasing the function of the harp, a classical instrument courting again to antiquity, in not solely modern widespread music, however furthermore, in music genres rooted in Black tradition: jazz, R&B, and hip-hop.

As she mirrored after her Desk on being included in NPR Music’s celebration of Black Music Month, Youthful remarked: “Once you consider harps and harpists, you do not essentially consider ‘Black’. And so to be part of that dialog as a harpist, it is a large deal.” Her collaborations vary from Robert Glasper and Makaya McCraven, to Moses Sumney, Ms. Lauryn Hill and Pete Rock. Compositions from her 2021 album, Someplace Completely different, garnered her a Grammy nomination for finest instrumental composition — the primary for a Black girl — and an entry on NPR Music’s 100 Finest songs of 2021 listing.

For her Tiny Desk, Youthful presents a few of her latest entries into the jazz harp canon. “Model New Life” and “Transferring Goal” characteristic vocalist Tatiana “LadyMay” Mayfield’s ethereal voice completely complimenting the transcendental tones of the harp, which is expanded right into a one girl choir of sound via using vocal pedals. Youthful closes with “Unrest I” and “Unrest II,” composed through the top of each the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests. In these two actions, Youthful, drummer Allan Mednard and bassist Rashaan Carter stunningly convey a maelstrom of rigidity, confusion, upheaval and launch, feelings undoubtedly current in lots of who equally witnessed a world in confusion exterior their home windows right now.

SET LIST

• “Raise Ev’ry Voice and Sing”
• “Model New Life”
• “Transferring Goal”
• “Unrest I” 
• “Unrest II”

MUSICIANS

• Brandee Youthful: harp
• Rashaan Carter: bass
• Allan Mednard: drums
• Tatiana Mayfield: vocals

TINY DESK TEAM

• Producer: Mitra I. Arthur
• Director/Editor: Kara Body
• Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin
• Inventive Director: Bob Boilen 
• Collection Producer: Bobby Carter
• Videographers: Kara Body, Joshua Bryant, Michael Zamora
• Audio Assistant: Kwesi Lee
• Manufacturing Assistant: Ashley Pointer
• Photographer: Zayrha Rodriguez 
• Tiny Desk Group: Suraya Mohamed, Maia Stern, Hazel Cills
• VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins
• Senior VP, Programming: Anya Grundmann