Cardi B brings a nine-piece band to NPR's Tiny Desk
Eight songs in about 18 minutes, from "Hello" and "ErrTime" to a closing run of "Bodak Yellow" and "I Like It."
Cardi B's Tiny Desk Concert went up on NPR Music's YouTube channel on October 19. She ran eight songs in about 18 minutes with a nine-piece band led by music director Adam Blackstone, Pitchfork reported.
"It's rare that we have to turn people away," Alanté Serene of NPR's Tiny Desk team wrote in the video notes, calling it "one of the biggest crowds I've ever seen here."
She opened with "Hello" and a reworked "ErrTime," both from Am I the Drama?, her 2025 album that debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. She slowed down for "Man of Your Word" and "Be Careful," then said "Change the vibes, change the vibes" and went into "Up" and straight into "AH HA," the single she released July 31.
She closed with "Bodak Yellow," her 2017 breakout, and "I Like It," her 2018 No. 1 with Bad Bunny and J Balvin, built on Pete Rodríguez's 1967 boogaloo "I Like It Like That." It was the first Hot 100 No. 1 for both Bad Bunny and J Balvin.
Pitchfork said the band gave the songs a rock-leaning edge, and that Cardi stopped once to joke about the lack of Maryland crab cakes on her rider.
The band: Adam Blackstone on bass and keys, DJ Ray G, Eugene Roberts on keys, Clayton Sears on guitar, Cedric Thompson on drums, Kenneth Whalum on sax, Melvin Jones on trumpet, and Tiffany Stevens and Ebony Franklin on background vocals.
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