Audrey Nuna: Tiny Desk Concert

Audrey Nuna: Tiny Desk Concert with tags npr, npr music, national public radio, live, performance, tiny desk, tiny desk concert, tony desk, tiny concert

Bobby Carter | October 18, 2024

After spending a few years listening to Audrey Nuna’s music and watching her music videos, I wondered how she would conform to the Tiny Desk. Her visuals embody larger-than-life personae, and the sonics of her debut album, A Liquid Breakfast, are anything but acoustic. Everything that comes with the New Jersey-born singer-songwriter is big. She stepped up to the challenge of stripping the elements in 2022 when she played a special Tiny Desk (home) concert, which was enough to hold her spot behind the Desk.

Audrey walked into NPR headquarters with her band, “The Jaywalkers,” baring that same persona that sets her apart from the rest, rockin' hunting vests, kilts with skull caps and a denim shirt made of denim pants. The setlist perfectly encapsulates how much musical ground she’s able to cover. She goes from a staccato flow on “Damn Right” to straight-up funk on “Time.” She flipped “Baby Blues” into a jazz number and played “Baby OG” from her new album, TRENCH, for the first time. Her long-time producer, Anwar Sawyer, handled keyboards and music direction, providing authenticity to this set. They’d put in weeks of rehearsal, and post-show, she told me that the execution was exactly what she envisioned.

SET LIST

“Damn Right”

“Time”

“Baby Blues”

“Suckin Up”

“Baby OG”

MUSICIANS

Audrey Nuna: lead vocals

Anwar Sawyer: keys, musical direction

Dominic Cannarella-Andersen: bass

Abbiana: vocals

Ethan Johnson: guitar

Jeremy Berges: drums

Sara Kawai: harp

TINY DESK TEAM

Producer: Bobby Carter

Director/Editor: Maia Stern

Audio Technical Director: Josephine Nyounai

Videographers: Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Kara Frame, Mitra I. Arthur

Audio Engineer: David Greenburg

Production Assistant: Elle Mannion

Photographer: Sofia Seidel

Tiny Desk Team: Hazel Cills, Ashley Pointer, Josh Newell

Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed

Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson

VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins

#nprmusic #tinydesk #audreynuna