The Sunday Story: Tiny Desk, Big Stage

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4.5 • 52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

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Summary

Since its debut in 2008, NPR's Tiny Desk has become a must-stop destination for music superstars like Taylor Swift and Alicia Keys but also for lesser-known musicians, including those who compete in the annual Tiny Desk contest.

Today on The Sunday Story host Ayesha Rascoe talks to senior producer Bobby Carter about the Tiny Desk series, how it has evolved over time and how the Tiny Desk contest has opened the door to the music industry for many artists.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just a warning that some of the song lyrics in today's show may include language that some may find offensive.
0:08.0	How's everybody doing? That's pretty good sizable applause there.
0:17.0	That's pretty good.
0:19.0	Thank everybody for coming out again.
0:22.0	This is weird as hell for me. In October of 2014 the artist
0:27.8	T-Pain showed up at the studios of NPR for a Tiny Dust concert.
0:33.0	Never done anything like this.
0:35.0	Didn't think you guys are going to be here,
0:36.5	but I guess we're doing this.
0:38.0	So, um...
0:39.0	The audience was expecting to hear classic T-Pain,
0:42.0	his trademark
0:43.4	autotune voice with its robotic-like pitch,
0:46.8	singing over a hip-hop beat that gets the club moving.
0:50.4	I know everybody's wondering where the autotune is gonna to come from it's okay I got it in my pocket
0:53.8	it's totally fine you got it right here it's all surgically inserted but there was no
0:59.2	auto tuned setup no DJ playing beats just T Payne and his keyboard player.
1:05.0	Oh, oh, no, no, no, no, oh, oh, oh, oh,
1:15.0	baby girl, what's your name?
1:20.0	Let me talk to you, let me buy you a drink and I'm tea pain.
1:25.0	You know me.
1:27.0	It captivated people because no one expected T-Pain to sing like that.
	...

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