Action Bronson brings his unique flavor and finesse to all of his projects, whether it be an album, a meal or a sneaker design. The rapper recently stopped by NPR Music to perform a run of jazzy renditions of a range of his tracks for his own Tiny Desk Concert.
The Queens native (who wasn’t shy to shout out his city – “Flushing, Queens. 164 Street”) jumped around his extensive discography, hitting new cuts as well as career classics. The setlist for the concert went as follows: “Dmtri”, “Live from the Moon”, “Latin Grammys”, “Terry” and “Baby Blue”.
His band Human Growth Hormone delivers the concert’s groovy melodies. Bronson ensures to introduce each of the band members, “Yung Mehico” on keys and saxophone, Nicholas Coleman on bass, “9Ether” on drums, Julian Love on guitar and Red Walrus on percussion.
Bronson leaves nothing at the door, bringing his personality and banter to the intimate performance space. “I’m sorry for cursing. I’m sorry about that. You might hear something,” he jokingly prefaces before his rendition of “Live from the Moon.”
NPR can vouch for this as well. Bobby Carter shares the following anecdote in NPR‘s write-up of the concert. “We instruct our guests to face the directional microphones so that our recorders clearly pick up the voices. Action warned us of the improbability of that happening before we started filming and sure enough, [he] strolled off mic a couple of times, did an about-face here and there, and even took a knee mid-show. By the time we got to “Latin Grammys,” he looked over to our engineer Josh Rogosin and said, ‘I told you I couldn’t stand still. How do you play music still?’”
The rapper also started the fourth track “Terry” over from the beginning about halfway through. “Start it over, start it over,” he tells his band. “If I don’t do it right, it’s not right. I also want to let you know the edibles just hit.”
After running “Terry” back, Bronson broke into an acapella rendition of concert’s closer, “Baby Blue” before hollering to the band to “start it up already.”
Bronson also greeted “nearly every person [at the concert] with a handshake”, NPR adds.
Stream the concert in full above.
Elsewhere in music news, Lil Yachty drops the music video for new song “SOLO STEPPIN CRETE BOY”.
