#tiny-desk

#tiny-desk

In 2025, we crammed rap and rock legends, instrumental virtuosos, Broadway musicals and, well, puppets and robots behind a desk in the NPR Music office. Never forget: Tiny Desk has the range. We published 115 (!) concerts this year. There's no way to encompass the scope of such a stellar and diverse roster Bad Bunny! Living Colour! Wiz Khalifa! PinkPantheress! so we asked the team that produces, films, engineers and edits these videos to share their favorite Tiny Desks of 2025, yearbook superlative style.

"the way these instruments are meant to sound."

Just before making the short walk from our makeshift green room (a converted office) to the Tiny Desk down the hall, the band members held hands and sang, "This will be the very best Tiny Desk." It's the kind of deadpan humor long found in the band's music, but also in their performance, as Cocker crooned, cooed and danced his way through four tracks.

What an honor to host Fito Paez, one of the pioneers of Argentine rock, at the Tiny Desk for the start of Latin Music Month. In 1984, Paez released his debut solo album one year after Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, joining the swell of Spanish language rock and roll that was growing in Argentina. His lyrical insight was poignant then and resonates now. In this set, his beloved storytelling is on full display as well as his connection to the audience.

MIKE's Tiny Desk performance showcases a reimagined sound, overflowing with gratitude, emotional depth, and a new artistic direction that reflects on his eight-year discography.

Rico Nasty's latest project, LETHAL, showcases her evolution as an artist, blending vulnerability with confidence and delivering a poignant experience at the Tiny Desk.