[WATCH] Usher Tiny Desk Concert Was A Great Way To End Black Music Month

By
Chelsea A. Hamlet
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Usher Tiny Desk
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Usher Tiny Desk concert premieres today! Usher has Vedo and Eric Bellinger as backup during his Tiny Desk! Usher has a new song, “Good Love,” with the City Girls dropping tomorrow and today is the last day of Black Music Month, so this Tiny Desk was PERFECT timing! It’s also the 25th anniversary of My WAY! Here are the songs he performed live!

Usher Tiny Desk Tracks

  1. You Make Me Wanna
  2. Superstar
  3. You Don’t Have To Call
  4. Nice & Slow
  5. Confessions Part  2
  6. My Way

If you need an incentive to watch Usher’s tiny desk, here’s a clip of him singing “Superstar”

 

 

Fans were so excited about Usher’s tiny desk! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

History of Black Music Month

Black Music Month has been a thing since 1979 but wasn’t officially recognized until 2000. According to Vibe,

[President Jimmy] Carter declared June Black Music Month with the event in 1979, and black music institutions celebrated every June thereafter, Black Music Month didn’t become an official observation until 2000. Dyana Williams discovered in the late ‘90s that President Carter didn’t issue an official decree, so she worked with her local congresswoman to draft House Resolution 509, better known as The African-American Music Bill. In its official form, the bill — signed by former president Bill Clinton — called for a formal acknowledgment and celebration of black music’s contribution to and impact on American life and culture. This is the spirit in which we observe Black Music Month today.

History of NPR Tiny Desk

NPR’s Tiny desk started in 2008 after Bob Boilen and Stephen Thompson of NPR went to hear an upcoming artist, Laura Gibson, at a South by Southwest concert but couldn’t hear her. According to Vox, ”

“Stephen jokingly said [to Gibson], ‘You should just come play in our office,’” says Boilen. “I just lit up. I thought that would be so cool.” Three weeks later, Gibson showed up at NPR’s DC office. Boilen and some colleagues cleared some space off a desk, grabbed a couple of microphones and a camera, filmed a completely unadulterated, raw performance, and put it online.”

“There was something that happened there I never would’ve imagined,” says Boilen. “It was the intimacy, as I’ve come to understand it. There was nothing between you and artist. There was no silly music video of someone running through a field. It wasn’t lip-synced. No reverb, studio niceties, just Laura’s voice coming through a beautiful microphone. Humble. It just worked.”

Since Usher’s tiny desk was less than 30 minutes, you can catch him in Vegas for his residency entitled, Usher: The Vegas Experience.

Did you catch Usher’s tiny desk performance? What did you think? Comment below.