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After elevating Afropop's standing with a standout guest spot on Wizkid's "Essence" and becoming a secret weapon for Rihanna, Drake and Beyoncé, Tems is ready for center stage.Adrienne Raquel Tems makes a great case for quitting. Before she was captivating millions with deep, dynamic vocals and setting a new pace for African artists on a global stage, the Nigerian singer-songwriter was daydreaming of the life in music she leads now. […]

Tierra Whack May 31, 2024 - Washington D.C.- NPR Music is thrilled to announce this year's Black Music month programming at the Tiny Desk. The all-women lineup includes: Tems, Chaka Khan, Tierra Whack, Kierra Sheard, Lakecia Benjamin, Meshell Ndegeocello, Brittney Spencer, SWV and Flo Milli. Host and series producer Bobby Carter and the rest of the Tiny Desk team will highlight the different generations of musicians beginning June 3. The […]

Updated May 14, 2024 at 12:10 PM ET Rapper Tupac Shakur performs at the Regal Theater in Chicago, Illinois in March 1994. Raymond Boyd/Getty Images In late April, Senator Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) began his testimony before a Senate subcommittee hearing by doing something unusual for a stuffy institution like Congress: He played a new song from the rapper Drake. But it wasn't Drake's rap verse that Tillis felt was […]

Ghostface Killah wearing his iconic gold eagle cuff. Atsuko Tanaka/American Museum of Natural History Flavor Flav's clock. Nicki Minaj's Barbie pendant. Slick Rick's crown and eyepatch. These are famous symbols of hip-hop. But perhaps the most iconic piece of them all is Ghostface Killah's eagle cuff. The gold bracelet weighs 5 pounds and features an eagle, wings outstretched, landing on the cuff. And it's on view right now at the […]

Credit: Photo: Elizabeth Gillis/NPR For Tiny Desk concerts without a lead vocalist, I usually try to detect musicians' nonverbal conversations with each other as they perform. For Kiefer's set, there's a bonus show within the show. He plays with a sense of joy that I haven't seen in a while and when his eyes connect with a fellow player, it's as if he's thanking them each time. With decades clocked […]