After receiving thousands of submissions, NPR music czar Bob Boilen announced the winner of the Tiny Desk Concert Series contest this morning. Bands from around the country competed for a chance to perform at NPR Music’s Tiny Desk and at the Lagunitas “CouchTrippin’ to Austin” show which will take place during South By Southwest in March.
Taking the cake was Oakland band Fantastic Negrito, who submitted a video of themselves playing in a freight elevator “behind a desk made of a steel slab and a work bench”. On Fantastic Negrito Bob Boilen has this to say:
“Fantastic Negrito calls himself a musician reborn. As a young man, the Oakland singer taught himself to play just about every instrument he could get his hands on. But after making a record that failed to take off, he felt his confidence and artistry suffer; disenchanted with music, he simply quit. The years that followed brought major life changes: a near-deadly car accident and the resulting coma, intense rehabilitation, marriage and the birth of his son. Now, renewed creative energy has spawned the musical project that is Fantastic Negrito. He chose the name, he says, as “a celebration of blackness. The ‘Fantastic’ is self-explanatory; the ‘Negrito’ is a way to open blackness up to everyone, making it playful and international.” Judges Bob Boilen, Robin Hilton, John Congleton, Valerie June, Reggie Watts and Thao Nguyen agreed that this soulful, unbridled performance, captured at a makeshift desk in an Oakland freight elevator, stood out from the crowd.”
Here’s the winning video:
You can check out more entries RIGHT HERE!
