Camila Cabello: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

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Camila Cabello: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert with tags npr, npr music, national public radio, live, performance, tiny desk, tiny desk concert, tony desk, tiny concert

From Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, Tiny Desk is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with an "El Tiny" takeover of the (home) concert series, featuring J Balvin, Camila Cabello and several more musicians from all corners of Latinidad.

Anamaria Sayre | October 15, 2021

To the beat of her swishing hips and swaying percussionists, Camila Cabello's famous "Half of my heart is in Havana" reverberates across this musician-packed Miami set, with an at-home ease that feels novel for the global popstar.

Born to a Cuban mother and Mexican father in Havana, Cuba, Cabello is no stranger to blending borders and connecting worlds. As the final performance in our Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration, her El Tiny concert epitomises the cross-cultural, transnational musical identities we've centered over the course of the series. Each unique arrangement of her universal hits represents and explores a new facet of the identities and experiences that make up Cabello.

These stripped-down renditions of her hits "Havana," "Real Friends," "Señorita" and "Don't Go Yet" include more Latin instrumentation than the recordings — presumably bringing them closer to sounds that were first introduced to her as music during her childhood in Havana, Mexico City, and Miami.

The interlude featuring a sacred Afro-Cuban Santería chant and the following performance of the unreleased, Mariachi-based "La Buena Vida," firmly root Cabello's El Tiny performance within two cultural traditions that don't typically glitter under the harsh lights of a global stage.

Here, we find Camila on the precipice of a voice that magically layers pop with tradition, holding all parts of a complex identity in seamless harmony. Flanked by Cuban congueros and Mexican mariachi, all aglow under the Miami sun, Camila Cabello's heart has never felt more whole.

SET LIST

"Havana"

"Real Friends"

"Señorita"

"Don't Go Yet"

"La Buena Vida"

MUSICIANS

Camila Cabello: vocals

Edwin Carranza: bass/music director

Marcus Kincy: keys/glockenspiel

Chris Johnson: drums

Luke Iono: guitar