For NPR music, you're connected to all songs considered. I'm Bob Boyle and we're doing

the best of March. NPR music picks for the music they were most passionate about. I bring now

Lars Gottridge, who always has something very passionate. So Lars, what do you have? Do you have

something like, brash outrageous in my face? I do. Bob E. Coquay is a duo featuring the producer

Batita and an angle and rapper and activist named O'Connor Closta. If Batita's somewhat

familiar, he did a record with Cognano No. 1, the Congolese, a group that put a string of

really great records almost two decades ago. But this is a record that pairs these two together.

Not for the first time, but they've decided to kind of two kind of a concept record. So the idea

is that there are two beings who have crashed landed on Earth and in crashing to Earth, they are

suddenly faced and confronted by all the uniqueities of humankind. So that's kind of what this

album is about. It's like really brash and up in your face observations on humanity. But with

extremely fun party music. That's amazing. So what are we going to hear? Rick and I hear

Pele. You might hear a little bit of, there are field recordings of Angolan music that they use,

and it's kind of all mixed in with like house music beats and a little bit of like really

razor sharp boombap. And Pele translates to the word skin. Here we go. Launch time.

Hey, what's up y'all? Bobby Carter here, producer for the tiny desk, and my favorite album of March

is by Joyce Rice and it's called Overgrown. You know, this album exemplifies everything that

I'm loving in R&B music right now, specifically the versatility. There's a blend and a balance of

mid and up tempo two steppers, pepper with a ballad hair in there that really kind of keeps you locked

in. Also, the production handle primarily by Demile who's on an amazing run right now.

Feels really big, but Joyce's range keeps her right in lockstep with everything he's doing.

And while Overgrown isn't overloaded with features, there's some great ones here. You got a

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