Audrey Nuna: Tiny Desk 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

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