The Most Popular Band In The World Performs A Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

Plus, updates to our We Insist timeline of this year's protest music

by Marissa Lorusso and Lyndsey McKenna Earlier this month, we shared We Insist, our timeline tracking new songs and videos that confront police brutality and white supremacy, beginning the week following George Floyd’s killing. It’s our way of documenting the year’s protest music in real time, as artists across genres address structural racism with profound vision. We added several new installments to that timeline in the past week. Janelle Monáe's “Turntables” is an urgent song about miseducation and inequality, accompanied by a music video featuring footage of marches past and present. The anonymous collective SAULT – who already released an Album of the Year contender called Untitled (Black Is) earlier this summer – released yet another album this month, closing with the song “Little Boy,” which reflects on the way structural racism can shatter childhood innocence. And Rapsody’s latest single “12 Problems” highlights the multifaceted, interconnected injustices Black Americans are facing in this moment. Newsletter continues after sponsor message Tiny Desk NPR A Tiny Desk concert with BTS, the chart-topping K-pop juggernaut beloved by fans worldwide, has been kind of a pipe dream for Stephen Thompson for at least two or three years now; on Monday, we premiered a Tiny Desk (home) concert with the group. After a record-smashing week, we asked Stephen about the process of bringing the global superstars to the Tiny Desk – virtually: “I’ve reached out to their PR people every time they’ve come anywhere near D.C., and have had several adrenaline-fueled brainstorming sessions with Bob Boilen and engineer Josh Rogosin about how we might accommodate a Tiny Desk concert that centers dancing. When the pandemic fully struck in March, we had to mothball our hopes — only to hear from BTS’s PR folks that the group was cooped up in Seoul and looking to try creative ways to make live performances happen in lieu of a tour. From there, everything happened organically: We sent over a list of guidelines, their people were nice and easy to deal with and we got a video that felt true to the spirit of the series. Lots of people have asked me if we’d have BTS back in the NPR Music offices to play a Tiny Desk concert when (slash if) if the pandemic is behind us, and I am here to tell you that YES, the group is hereby invited to do just that when the time comes. I will personally drag out the desk to make room if I have to.” In other Tiny Desk news: This week, we also published a set from Tiny Desk alum Oddisee from a studio in York, Penn. (the midway point between the band members’ hometowns) and one from Conway the Machine from a diner that looks mouth-wateringly delicious. New Music This week on New Music Friday from All Songs Considered: a searing new album from Public Enemy, beautiful organ orchestrations from Anna Von Hausswolff, expansive pop from Sad13 and more. The Ascension is Sufjan Stevens’s first solo studio album in five years. And for all of the new album's doom-saying about our national predicament, writes critic Lindsay Zoladz, much of the album comes back to one theme: love. Also this week on All Songs Considered, Bob Boilen talks to Yusuf Cat Stevens about how and why he’s revisiting the songs on the groundbreaking album Tea for the Tillerman – songs that were originally written shortly after he'd had a close encounter with death – 50 years later. This week, Member station KCRW shared a video of Mon Laferte — whose sound incorporates cumbia, salsa and bolero music — performing “El Mambo” live in the studio. Featuring Jazz has always been a celebration of Black self-determination, but the jazz recording industry has not. As the form experienced an awakening in the late '60s and early '70s, Black Jazz Records — an independent, Black-owned label that focused on artistic self-determination — was at the forefront of capturing it. Now, after several decades in which the music has gone in and out of print, the entire Black Jazz Records portfolio is being revived. For their first wedding anniversary in 1965, Franzo and Marina King went to watch John Coltrane perform; the experience was, quite literally, religious. Fifty years later, their San Francisco church, the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox Church, is an idiosyncratic place of devotion to the divine – and to jazz. New York’s famed Metropolitan Opera will remain closed until September 2021. In a press release, the Met noted that in-person performances could not resume until a vaccine was widely in use and herd immunity was established.  In a year filled with calamity, Dua Lipa has delivered a pair of euphoric projects that have delighted pop fans longing for the dance floor. You can now watch her interview with Jason King for the closing keynote session of this year's virtual Pop Conference, in conjunction with NPR Music and the Museum of Pop Culture. Philadelphia's famed jazz culture runs deep among fans and regional artists. This week, our friends at Member station WRTI profiled several organizations in the city that work together to ensure jazz's future through education. One More Thing “History Has Its Eyes on You.” What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: nprmusic@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. 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