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#LalahHathaway #LivePerformance #NPR #R&B #RnB #Soul Lalah Hathaway  comes from royalty: Her late father  Donny Hathaway 's voice was crucial for my generation, setting the bar for inspired, old-school soul singing. But living in that kind of shadow can also be a burden, robbing the offspring of an identity apart from that of the famous parent. The younger Hathaway's appearance behind the Tiny Desk pulls back the curtain a bit for a close-up encounter with her powerfully expressive voice. The lower registers always draw me in, and in "Change Ya Life," Hathaway's dusky contralto paints an exciting portrait of blissful cohabitation — but on her terms. "I'm going to teach you how to treat me like I deserve," she sings, adding, "I'll give you the world." She draws on a tradition of romance and sensuality in the best soul music, but with a feminist twist that eschews old-school, male-centric lyrics and attitudes. Lyrics alone do n

#TinyDesk #Ólafur Arnalds #NPR It's as if the pianos were haunted. Somewhere about midway through this Tiny Desk, as Icelandic composer  Ólafur Arnalds  performed on his electronic keyboard, two upright pianos were playing lilting melodies behind him, absent any performer at the keys. And yet these "ghosts," along with Ólafur's band of strings and percussion, put together some of the most beautiful music I've heard at the Tiny Desk, made all the more mysterious through its presentation. About ten minutes into the performance Ólafur looked behind him at the two pianos, looked to the NPR crowd and said, "well I guess you're all wondering 'what and why,' to which there's no easy answer." He hit the keys on his electronic keyboard and the two pianos behind responded with cascading, raindrop-like notes. "What I can say," he continued, "is that I've spent two years and all of my money on this — to make my piano