Baby Rose: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

Sidney Madden — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 21:38:06 GMT

Baby Rose plays a Tiny Desk (Home) Concert.(NPR)

The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music's Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It's the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space.

Nestled in her cozy, clean bedroom of mostly white accents, Baby Rose stands out with an all-black outfit, her full, billowing waves and that voice. That voice! The depths of sorrow and passion the D.C. native digs into with such conviction has come to be reliably awe-inspiring. It's the reason her Tiny Desk concert earlier this year stopped us in our tracks. And it's the reason we've invited her back to bring the heat once again, albeit from a safe and secure distance.

Rose's message of "staying safe" during her Tiny Desk (home) concert has become a commonplace cordial greeting during the coronavirus pandemic. (It's partially the reason her pianist, Timothy Maxey, is giving her room even in these close confines.) But with the added context of so many protesting police brutality and racism by taking to the streets in the last few weeks, the words feel even heavier. Coming from Rose, it's not for the sake of nicety.

Earnest intention is the reason Baby Rose's music has found a place on HBO's hit series Insecure. In this bedroom mini-show, Rose performs "Show You" (which was used to underscore this season's most dramatic romantic plot twist), "Pressure," and a forthcoming song called "Marmot," which she hadn't performed live until this Tiny Desk (home) concert.

Baby Rose proves here she doesn't need bells and whistles to capture the intensity of a moment — just raw, real vulnerability.

SET LIST

"Pressure"

"Marmot"

"Show You"

MUSICIANS

Baby Rose: vocals; Timothy Maxey: keys

CREDITS

Videographer: Baby Rose; Audio Engineer: Baby Rose; Producers: Bobby Carter, Sidney Madden; Audio Mastering Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Video Producers: Morgan Noelle Smith, Maia Stern; Executive Producer: Lauren Onkey; Senior VP, Programming: Anya Grundmann
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Tiny Desk Concert: Baby Rose

Rodney Carmichael — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 08:27:06 GMT

Baby Rose plays a Tiny Desk Concert (Kisha Ravi/NPR).(NPR)

"This is what real love sounds like."

From any other new artist, a Tiny Desk declaration like that might sound a tad bit presumptuous if not altogether premature. But when the voice behind those words is as seasoned and vintage as Baby Rose's, everything it utters reverberates like the gospel truth. The D.C. native — who came of age in Fayetteville, N.C. before coming into her own as an artist in Atlanta — returned to her birthplace, backed by a big band including strings, to perform songs from her 2019 LP To Myself.

Studio debuts as stunning as To Myself don't come out every day, year or decade, for that matter. But to truly appreciate what Rose achieves on last year's release, you have to see her perform those songs live. In an era when the over-reliance on Autotune has nearly everybody in radio R&B land sounding like automatons, her unadulterated voice is almost otherworldly. It's confounding how a vocal tone so weathered and wise emerges from her so effortlessly. At 25, she mixes the bluesy melisma of Nina Simone and the deep register of Sarah Vaughan — two of her influences — with songwriting as devastating as her delivery.

"I would not be able to write with such emotion about these things without my fair share of regrets," she says, introducing her song "Ragrets." That kind of life experience seeps through in a performance plush with warmth and empathy. Dedicating the last song to herself — and "to anyone here that's ever wanted to call or text somebody that you know you should not call or text" — Rose introduced "All To Myself" by congratulating those of us who've refrained from squandering our emotions on the undeserved.

Funny enough, the last voice heard in Baby Rose's Tiny Desk belongs not to her but to her father, who arrived midway through her set before squeezing his way up to the front. "That's my daughter!" he shouts over the applause as Rose laughs and claps for him. The love was well-deserved.

SET LIST

"Sold Out"

"Ragrets"

"Over"

"Mortal"

"All To Myself"

MUSICIANS

Baby Rose: vocals; Craig Shephard: bass; Timothy Maxey: piano; John Scherer: guitar; Tauseef Anam: drums; Jasmine Charles: viola; Margot Whitney: violin; Noah Johnson: cello

CREDITS

Producers: Rodney Carmichael, Bobby Carter, Morgan Noelle Smith, Jack Corbett; Creative director: Bob Boilen; Audio engineers: Josh Rogosin, Alex Drewenskus; Editor: Maia Stern; Videographers: Jack Corbett, Maia Stern, Bronson Arcuri, Melany Rochester; Production Assistant: Shanti Hands; Executive producer: Lauren Onkey; VP, programming: Anya Grundmann; Photo: Kisha Ravi/NPR
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.