SOUNDTRACK: DUCKWRTH-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert Meets SXSW: #189 (April 5, 2021).
Every year, NPR Music participates in the SXSW music festival, whether it’s curating a stage or simply attending hundreds of shows at the annual event in Austin, Texas. Last year, the festival was canceled due to the pandemic, but it returned this March as an online festival. We programmed a ‘stage’ of Tiny Desk (home) concerts and presented them on the final day of the festival. Now, we present to you Tiny Desk Meets SXSW: four videos filmed in various locations, all of them full of surprises.
DUCKWRTH decided to do something special for Tiny Desk Meets SXSW: brand new music. The dynamic R&B singer proceeded to debut two exclusives: a slow jam titled “make u go,” which he dedicates to the “lovers and freaks,” and the upbeat “Birthday Suit,” which KCRW astutely compared to Estelle’s “American Boy.”
The new material wasn’t the only thing that made this Tiny Desk such a treat. For this funky and flamboyant performance, DUCKWRTH dressed his backing band entirely in white and switched up the lighting for each song so that the hue matched the mood he was laying down.
“Kiss U Right Now” [red lights] opens with a muted guitar line from Justin “Jhawk” Hawkins. After a soft “Okay” from DUCKWRTH, a kind of sci-fi warbly keyboard comes in from Devin Smith. And then with a slide on the bass from Solomon “Solo” Smith the song bounces to a start. DUCKWRTH has a soft croon that he intermixes with rapping verses. It’s quite inviting and not given to histrionics.
Before “make u go” [purple lights] he says “Welcome to my Tiny Desk,” he says. “We are gonna play some new songs for y’all if that’s OK. Y’all ain’t got no choice!” This is mostly gentle keys and then backing vocalists Olivia Walker and Amber Olivia Kiner start by singing the chorus.
He says “Birthday Suit” [white lights] is morning music. With this amusing line “Meet me in my birthday suit / This ain’t Gucci, it’s way more cute.” Amber Olivia Kiner sings the lead lines. The song ends with this refrain:
we look better naked / better in the nude / bend it over baby while in public / we may end up on the news.
“Super Good” [blue lights] is a slow jam with an interesting drum pattern from Darryl Staves Jr. I really enjoy the simple but synchronized dance steps at the end of the song.
[READ: April 19, 2021] Parable of the Talents [2035]
When this book started I thought that it was an interesting idea to have Lauren’s child go wholly against her. I even wondered if it was Butler’s rethinking about Earthseed. Larkin’s attitude about her mother doesn’t exactly change over these chapters, but it does morph a bit. So much so that by the time chapter seventeen rolls around, Larkin comes across as a bit more of a petulant, jealous person than a critical thinker.
I wonder what my life would have been life if my mother had found me. I don’t doubt that she would have stolen me from the Alexanders–or died trying. But then what? How long would it have been before she put me aside for Earthseed, her other kid? I was her weakness. Earthseed was her strength. No wonder it was her favorite. (265)
2033 was a terrible time and, frankly, a painful read. The chapter of 2035 tells us that all of Olamina’s diaries from 2034 are lost. Which is just as well for me since 2034 was a year of the same torture and hellishness and I’m just as happy to not have to read it.
Larkin writes that she met some people who were at Camp Christian (we don’t know how yet) and spoke to a woman named Cody Smith who told her about the attempted uprising by Day Turner and his people–an uprising that failed and that caused a massive increase in suffering for everyone there.
Larkin tells us that everything that was done at Camp Christian was illegal–despite what Jarret tried to make legal. The one thing that seems to have been made legal was the removal of children from their families at the Mexican border because of vagrancy laws. (more…)
