JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

It has been a giant 12 months for NPR’s Tiny Desk Live performance sequence. From big names like Put up Malone and Maluma to rising artists like Tiny Desk Contest winner Little Moon, there have been dozens of unbelievable performances this 12 months. We have given a couple of of our colleagues from NPR Music the tough job of choosing their favorites of 2023. Kicking us off is NPR Music author and host Stephen Thompson.

STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: We did greater than 100 Tiny Desk Live shows this 12 months, so even narrowing down a High 10 appears inconceivable. However it’s potential to select only one favourite as a result of that is the 12 months we lastly put out a Tiny Desk Live performance with Gwar.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GWAR: Hey.

THOMPSON: Gwar is a long-running heavy steel band whose members are all intergalactic monsters. Individuals consider Gwar as nearly probably the most over-the-top band on Earth, and the concept of bringing them to the Tiny Desk created loads of promise.

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GWAR: (Singing) I received a monkey fish. I received a cool fish. I received a pig log, dig canine, turkey log, corny cob, bing-bang, ding-dong, slappy-wappy wing wam. Intercourse cow.

THOMPSON: Whilst they had been singing these raunchy songs with titles like “Intercourse Cow,” there was one thing nonetheless sort of weirdly healthful about it. It wasn’t household pleasant in any respect, however it wasn’t that totally different from once we had the gang from Sesame Road present up.

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GWAR: (Singing) Intercourse cow, (screaming).

(CHEERING)

THOMPSON: Gwar is that this very excessive band, and but they nonetheless sort of got here in with the concept of assembly us on our stage. And so at one level they did, like, an NPR fundraising drive. They made jokes about Terry Gross.

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BALSAC THE JAWS OF DEATH: Terry freaking Gross.

BLOTHAR: Hey, hey, watch your mouth.

BALSAC THE JAWS OF DEATH: No, she’s…

BLOTHAR: Why are you calling folks names?

BALSAC THE JAWS OF DEATH: No, she is a Gross. She comes from an extended line of Grosses.

BLOTHAR: Terry Gross is a nationwide treasure, so that you shut your entice.

THOMPSON: And I simply thought it was so candy in a manner that they sort of took the project at face worth and had enjoyable with it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GWAR: (Singing) I will be your monster, child.

(CHEERING)

THOMPSON: You understand, I’ve heard lots of people describe the Gwar Tiny Desk as, like, the head of Tiny Desk Live shows, like, one thing so outrageous and shocking that it may well’t be topped.

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GWAR: (Singing) Hiding beneath your mattress. Higher sleep with the sunshine on, sugar – been awhile since I fed.

THOMPSON: To me, I do not see it as a pinnacle. I see it as a place to begin. You understand, I personally have a few very silly and peculiar and humorous concepts for Tiny Desk Live shows and I am only one man on the group, you realize? So I see Gwar not as an achievement a lot as a promise for 2024 and past.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

GWAR: (Singing) I am going to eat you up I really like you so.

(CHEERING)

ANAMARIA SAYRE, BYLINE: Hey, that is Anamaria Sayre. I am the host of NPR Music’s Alt.Latino. And my favourite Tiny Desk second from this 12 months was the legend – (talking Spanish) – Ivy Queen’s Tiny Desk.

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IVY QUEEN: (Talking Spanish). Let me take you to my motherland – Puerto Rico, that’s – OK?

(CHEERING)

IVY QUEEN: Hey. You right here? (Talking Spanish).

SAYRE: Ivy Queen is an absolute legend. She is likely one of the first females who took reggaeton huge from Puerto Rico. It is an enormous deal that she got here to play for us as a result of she’s primarily somebody who helped create the style that loads of us at the moment are so conversant in.

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IVY QUEEN: (Singing in Spanish).

SAYRE: Lots of people wrestle with adapting their music to the Tiny Desk as a result of no in-ears, no displays, and you bought to create these percussive beats that, for reggaeton particularly, are so important to what make it thrilling, to what make folks wish to transfer. And so when folks got here by means of and so they noticed the setup for Ivy Queen, everybody saved asking me, the place are the drums, the place are the drums? And I saved saying, don’t be concerned, simply wait. It is Ivy. She will do something. And certain sufficient, with no drums, with only a piano, strings and her voice, she carried the vitality of a dembow beat.

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IVY QUEEN: (Vocalizing).

(CHEERING)

IVY QUEEN: (Talking Spanish). One, two, three – let’s go.

(CHEERING)

IVY QUEEN: (Talking Spanish).

SAYRE: Oh, my God, it is taking me again to that second. I imply, to listen to “Quiero Bailar” – it is, like, the music that you just placed on if you actually need that pump-up, if you actually need to be ok with your self, about being a girl. And to listen to her do it, simply unbelievable.

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IVY QUEEN: (Rapping in Spanish).

SAYRE: She was not afraid by any means to say what she was considering, which feels very becoming for an artist like herself as a result of to be a pioneer within the area, to be an Ivy Queen, to be a girl who’s taken critically as a rapper, as a reggaetonera, I imply, it’s a must to put on all the things you assume and also you say in your sleeve. And on this Tiny Desk particularly, she confirmed up together with her actions and confirmed that she’s not all discuss and she or he’s actually all work and recreation and hustle. And he or she brings that female and feminist vitality to our stage, and that is wonderful.

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IVY QUEEN: (Rapping in Spanish).

(CHEERING)

BOBBY CARTER, BYLINE: My identify is Bobby Carter and I am the sequence producer for the Tiny Desk. And arising on the finish of the 12 months, the spotlight for me is Scarface’s Tiny Desk. A daring assertion is that Scarface has the most effective hip-hop Tiny Desk that we have ever recorded.

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SCARFACE: (Rapping) I received this love forming in my life for this dame, and certainly took the type of life. And that is a disgrace, how a person can fall in love what leaves and never a mind, not afraid to allow you to up and go away him.

CARTER: Scarface is one-third of a legendary hip-hop group, the Geto Boys. After which within the early ’90s, Scarface went solo, and that is when he actually blossomed. I believe the factor that units him other than so lots of the different greats is his capability to inform tales.

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SCARFACE: (Rapping) Pleased simply to listen to your identify. I want to listen to you say.

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary.

CARTER: Tales of his upbringing, the tales of road life however in a susceptible sense. He is your favourite rapper’s favourite rapper, so he is only a legend within the recreation – 30, 40 years, nonetheless doing it.

(CHEERING)

CARTER: There was a component on “I Seen A Man Die” – and that music is strolling you thru somebody truly leaving the bodily life – and it is a bone-chilling second.

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SCARFACE: (Rapping) He greets his father together with his arms out, rehabilitated barely, glad to be the person’s baby. The world is totally different since he is seen it final – out of jail, been seven years, and he is comfortable that he is free ultimately.

CARTER: He actually instructed vivid tales from a viewpoint that Black males and folks in hip-hop had been simply not used to listening to. He actually delved right into a darkness that many people had been afraid to discuss.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SCARFACE: (Rapping) And the life you used to dwell will replicate in your mom’s face. And I nonetheless received to surprise why I ain’t by no means seen a person cry until I seen that man die.

CARTER: Yeah, if there was ever any doubt about Scarface’s place in historical past, this Tiny Desk cemented all of it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) By no means seen a person cry until I seen a person die.

CARTER: If I might, I simply – wanting again on this 12 months on the Tiny Desk, for my part, this was the most effective 12 months that we have ever had. There have been so many exhibits that linked to our viewers in a particular manner this 12 months. Like, I can go on and on and on. And it is simply that little nook is the place greatness and magic occurs.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

That was NPR Music’s Bobby Carter, Anamaria Sayre and Stephen Thompson.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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