NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts

Buddy (2019x2)

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When Buddy, a preacher's son from Compton, turns to me with eyebrows raised on the elevator ride inside NPR's corporate headquarters, it's hard to tell if the question that comes next is in preparation for his performance or pure provocation. "Can we smoke in here?!" he asks with a grin that elicits stifled laughter from his bandmates and a few newsroom journalists along for the ride. It's a blunt request, even from a self-professed "weed connoisseur," and it kicks off one of the most dramatic Tiny Desks in recent memory. If 2018 signaled the year of disruption in rap — with a shortlist of vets and newcomers trolling their way to the top of the charts — it was dominated by a groundswell of emerging voices who found more creative means to make their mark. Buddy's anticipated full-length debut Harlan & Alondra, named for the cross streets where he lived as a child, placed him among the better company (and on NPR's Best Rap Albums Of 2018). The same soulful hybrid of rapping and singing that compelled Pharrell to sign him as a teenager found Buddy stretching L.A. hip-hop beyond its typical gangsta narrative, while dancing with his dreams and shaking off his demons. But sometimes being a nonconformist works both ways. So when Buddy proceeded to fire up a blunt midway through his set, we had to stop the show and ask him to put it out before re-recording his song, "Hey Up There." (Smoking is not allowed on NPR property.) The performance was still lit, owing in part to Buddy's Baptist bona fides and his hood's close proximity to Hollywood. He grew up a singing in the choir and watching his dad work the crowd from the pulpit. He's also an alumni of actress Wendy Raquel Robinson's Amazing Grace Conservatory, an L.A. program known for steeping inner-city kids in the performing arts. Between the two, he earned his dramatic chops early. "I'm so used to being in front of an audience of people," he tells me, "just doing my thing and not really caring about it." He's