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He pretty much wakes up like this.

Listen To Tank And The Bangas On NPR’s Ask Me Another

On the first night of our Tiny Desk Contest tour, Tank and the Bangas appeared at the Bell House in Brooklyn, N.Y. for a live taping of NPR’s Ask Me Another. You can listen to them play a short set — and compete to see whether Tank knows Disney songs better than Albert does.

10 More Tiny Desk Contest Entries We Loved

When we announce the winner of our Tiny Desk Contest, it’s always a momentous day. Tank and the Bangas won this year’s Contest, and we’ve been thrilled with the response that the band’s received. We know Tank and her bandmates are going to keep doing great things.

But the Contest isn’t just one long push to the day we announce the winner. And it’s about more than just that one winner. It is about everyone — our winner included — coming together to share that most precious part of themselves: their music. It’s about a community of artists lifting one another up. It is, and has always been, about the undiscovered musicians in this country and the dreams that sustain them.

In that spirit, we’ve featured 10 more of the many incredible acts we saw in this year’s Contest over on All Songs Considered. Find a new musician to fall in love with, and spread the word about them. 

After Leaving Justin Timberlake’s Label, A Garage-Soul Singer Forges Her Own Path

Orlando, Fla. Tiny Desk Contest entrant The Sh-Booms was featured this weekend on Weekend Edition Saturday. Here’s an excerpt of lead singer Brenda Radney on her entry and her music career:

“We submitted because I have known about Tiny Desk forever. I knew all about this Contest. I didn’t write the song — Al wrote the song because he’s the writing genius of the band. And we had a photo shoot and Al was like, 'Hey we should try to submit because I think they’re closing the submissions tomorrow.’ … everybody had their gear, and we just made it happen.

“The song is called ‘Audible,’ and the context of the song is speaking to a significant other or an ex-lover and basically telling them that, 'Hey, you’re making my life really difficult and I’m kinda pumping the breaks on this.’ It’s everybody’s favorite song, it’s the last song that we usually sing and play when we’re performing …

“I go back and forth between ‘I want to do this as a career,’ versus ‘I do this for fun.’ I think when I had the deal [with Justin Timberlake’s label], it became not fun, and that bothered me. Now, I do this for fun, even though I am broke, it doesn’t matter. But at the same time, I do sort of wish that I could make this a full-time thing …

“But as it stands right now, Brenda and The Sh-Booms are a thing. We’re gonna ride this puppy until the legs fall off.”

Alt.Latino Showcases 13 Latin Entries To The Tiny Desk Contest

Yesterday, a big snowstorm kept many of NPR’s East Coast-based employees home for the day. Alt.Latino host Felix Contreras weathered the storm in the best way I can imagine — by making Korean stir-fry and recording a podcast about some of his favorite Latin Tiny Desk Contest entries. Check out the video for one of his picks, MaJo, above, then click through to see the 12 other amazing musicians he’s spotlighted!

… 

Watch Tank And The Bangas’ Tiny Desk Concert Now!

“Out of over 6,000 entries — more submissions than we’ve ever received — Tank And The Bangas won, unanimously, this year’s Tiny Desk Contest. I fully expected their victory performance here at NPR headquarters in D.C. to be celebratory. I didn’t know we’d all end up in tears.”

– Bob Boilen

Introducing The Winner Of The 2017 Tiny Desk Contest

We watched more than 6,000 videos. 10 judges weighed in. Now, the 2017 Tiny Desk Contest has a winner.

We are proud to have fallen in love with the sounds of New Orleans’ own Tank and the Bangas.

The decision was unanimous among our judges. Here’s what a few of them had to say:

— Anthony Hamilton: “WOW! She’s a beast and their music makes you feel good. … Tank and the Bangas are what Tiny Desk is all about.”

— Trey Anastasio of Phish: “Tank and the Bangas is like a psychedelic joy rap explosion. Like a female Sly Stone teleporting into 2017 and landing in New Orleans.”

— WFUV’s Rita Houston: "There is star power all over this.”

— Stas THEE Boss of KEXP: “Tank and the Bangas gave me life straight out of the gate.”

In this third year of the Tiny Desk Contest, we got more submissions than ever before. We saw submissions from every state in this country, and the variety of ages and instrumentations on display was thrilling to see. There may be only one “winner,” but truth be told, every one of these videos is a testament to the joy of making music. It’s a way to share what is often so personal, publicly. It’s about a community of friends and sharing your art with a world beyond your bedroom. So from all of us at the Tiny Desk, thank you to everyone who submitted. Thank you for all the chances you took putting yourself out there.

Our next step is to have Tank and the Bangas come and record a Tiny Desk concert here behind my desk at NPR in Washington, D.C. And after that, we’re hitting the road with Lagunitas Brewing Company on a national tour with Tank and the Bangas and local Contest entrants we loved. Stay tuned for dates and more information — we can’t wait to meet you in person.

There will be more opportunities for us to feature some of the amazing music you shared with us, and I already know I’ll be spending a good deal more time listening to so many of the artists who entered. But for now, I want to thank everyone who entered the Contest for inspiring our team every day. And to Tank and the Bangas: Congratulations. Our adventure together is just beginning.

From the Tiny Desk,

Pups Of The Tiny Desk: The California band Hendricks Oak has a hopeful, folk-country sound so infectious that even their dog has to sing along. The band sent a note in about Jiggs:

“The dog is Jiggs. The good boy is 9 years, 90lbs, and happiest when he’s sitting on someone’s lap. … He didn’t start singing with us until just a year or so ago. We were a drink or two in, celebrating a friend’s birthday, and were around a fire, giving the ole moon a howl. As we stopped we looked over and Jiggs had his head rocked back howling along with the pack. He’s been howling with us ever since.”

We should all be so lucky as to have such loyal backpup singers.* If Jiggs is your pick for the cutest pup of the Tiny Desk Contest, then head over to our weekly just-for-fun vote page by this Friday at 10 a.m. ET to cast your vote. In the meantime, we’re reviewing all the submissions to the Contest to choose our overall winner, whom we’ll announce by early March!

– Ben

*h/t WeRateDogs for the styling on the pup jokes. They’re good jokes.

2015 Tiny Desk Contest Winner Fantastic Negrito Just Won A Grammy

In 2015, NPR Music ran our first-ever Tiny Desk Contest. That year, a little-known blues musician named @fantasticnegrito submitted an entry. It was a simple video — filmed in one take on an iPad in an elevator shaft. But there was an electric quality to it that transfixed our team. Fantastic Negrito went on to win that year’s Contest.

Today, two years later, his album The Last Days Of Oakland won the Grammy award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

From here:

To here:

And now here:

We are so proud to have been a part of this journey. Congratulations to Fantastic Negrito. And to all the dreamers: Keep it up.

Gaelynn Lea’s Tiny Desk concert just hit over 1 million views on YouTube! Watch the video that won last year’s Tiny Desk Contest below and stay tuned — we’ll announce this year’s winner by early March!

Announcing our first voting category: Desks In The Wild!

While our judges are combing through all your videos to find this year’s winner, we thought we’d have a little fun. We’re hosting three weekly just-for-fun fan favorite votes that anyone — whether or not they entered the Contest — can participate in! Each week, you can vote for your favorite among six awesome Tiny Desk entries in a given category. It’s kind of like the superlatives in your high school yearbook.

This week, our theme is Desks In The Wild. The Tiny Desk itself never leaves the office (desks are funny that way), but that’s part of why we love watching all of you take desks to strange new places. Often, we see beautiful videos with desks in the great outdoors. So, we’ve chosen six videos we love and want you to weigh in: Which is your favorite video featuring a desk out of its natural habitat? The contenders this week are:

- “Floating” by The Helmsmen - “Into The Sea” by Peter Su - “Howl” by Little Red and The Riffs - “Milk This Ride” by Mike Saliani - “Break My Body’s Speed” by Mink’s Miracle Medicine - “Winter" by Eva and the Vagabond Tales

Vote over on our site before Friday, when we’ll announce the results!

The Los Angeles band Whesli’s song “I Hope Today” is about being kind and patient with yourself. Lead singer Whesli Gamble’s voice is confident and sincere, and the groove behind her is irresistibly laid-back. The result feels like the perfect soundtrack to a reflective stroll. “Today’s got me thinking I don’t want to feel lost,” Gamble sings. She reminds me that the act of introspection is also a legitimate — and essential — political project.

– Jenny

Nevada hip-hop group The Lique emanates joy. Rasar Amani’s rap centers on the refrain “I am love / I am peace / I am joy / That can never be destroyed,” and his performance is irrepressibly upbeat. The band, in matching suits, does an impressive job recreating some of the standard electronic elements of a West Coast hip-hop beat on acoustic instruments. Pianist Jason Corpuz and guitarist Sean Carbone use melodicas for the lead synth line; drummer Jeremy Klewicki creates a dynamic beat with an array of auxiliary percussion.

Most importantly, this is a band that knows how to embody the message of its music. This is a happy, hopeful three minutes of jazzy hip-hop:

– Ben

The Tiny Desk Contest closed last night, and one of the first entries we saw this morning was the Brookdale Galleria Kazoo Ensemble’s delightful “Don’t You Love Livin’ In Texas.” The original song (written by ensemble member Mary H. Wright) is performed by musicians between ages 77 and 95. As they write in their description, they “believe that growing older doesn’t mean you stop having fun…or making music!”

Suffice it to say this is a moment of levity that is more than up to the task of confronting your Monday blues.

– Ben