ANDREW LIMBONG, HOST:
Generally once I’m on the workplace right here at NPR, I will be attempting to ship off a couple of emails when there’s this racket occurring a couple of desks over.
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ELMIENE: I’m Elmiene. That is my ridiculous, unbelievable band.
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RHIAN TEASDALE: It’s extremely cool to be right here at NPR Tiny Desk.
LIMBONG: Yep. I sit proper by the place they document the Tiny Desks. You understand them. You’re keen on them, significantly the big-name ones do tremendous effectively, like, Ed Sheeran…
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ED SHEERAN: Touching in your physique whilst you’re pushing on me. Do not you finish the celebration, I might do that all week.
LIMBONG: …Or Taylor Swift…
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TAYLOR SWIFT: (Singing) My coronary heart, my hips, my physique, my love. Looking for part of me that you simply did not contact. Gave up on me like I used to be a foul drug, now I am looking for indicators in a haunted membership.
LIMBONG: …And, after all, earlier this yr, when Dangerous Bunny made a shock look, performing songs from his massively profitable album “Debi Tirar Mas Fotos.”
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BAD BUNNY: (Singing in Spanish).
LIMBONG: However this week, a Tiny Desk live performance by a gaggle that a lot of you might have most likely by no means heard of exploded sooner than movies by a few of these A-listers.
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UNIDENTIFIED PUPPETEER #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PUPPETEER #2: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PUPPETEER #1: Oh.
31 MINUTOS: (Singing in Spanish).
LIMBONG: Treinta Y Un Minutos is a Chilean band made up of wildly gifted musicians and wisecracking puppets who’re stars throughout Latin America for the youngsters’s present of the identical identify.
ANAMARIA SAYRE, BYLINE: I do not even know describe the extent of virality, Andrew, that this video has now achieved. It has damaged so many information for the Tiny Desk. It is also simply develop into, like, a cult degree of obsessive.
LIMBONG: That is Anamaria Sayre. She is the host of Alt.Latino and applications the particular month of El Tiny, the annual Latin music takeover of the Tiny Desk collection that wraps up this week.
SAYRE: The president in Chile has been posting about it, the minister of the financial system in Mexico – I imply, it is, like, actually gone world.
LIMBONG: So why did 31 Minutos – once more, a band that performs in Spanish and offers main “Muppet” vibes – break the web? And what does that inform us about Tiny Desk and the present cultural and political moments we’re in? I known as up Anamaria, and she or he began by inform me a bit in regards to the present.
SAYRE: “Treinta Y Un Minutos” is mainly a Chilean kids’s present that is been round for the reason that early 2000s. It was one of many first items truly of collective public kids’s programming that Chile was capable of get off the bottom, and it is completely beloved within the area – not solely in Chile, however in different elements of Latin America. It is an enormous level of pleasure in Chile. It is a type of, like, integral, core childhood, actually, actually form of, like, significant issues for folks.
And greater than that, the present – I imply, the present is good. It is considerate. It is good. It is important. It is the primary present, lots of people say, that did not actually deal with kids like kids. They handled kids like they might deal with social points and political critique and simply, like, precise trustworthy commentary about life. In order that’s one other one of many causes that it simply turned instantly valued for folks in Chile and actually throughout Latin America.
LIMBONG: This Tiny Desk is doing numbers, proper? It’s – it is up there within the tens of millions, proper?
SAYRE: Mhm.
LIMBONG: Do you might have any information? Has this Tiny Desk kind of damaged containment? Is that this now exported outdoors?
SAYRE: So yeah, that is insider scoop from trying on the YouTube metrics.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
SAYRE: So for one, this reached 1,000,000 views inside 12 hours, which is…
LIMBONG: Sheesh.
SAYRE: …One of many quickest.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
SAYRE: It was beat by Billie Eilish, and there might have been one or two others, possibly, however fairly shut behind Billie Eilish, which hit 1,000,000 in 6 hours. It broke Dangerous Bunny’s second-day document. Inside that first 10 hours, it was rising at 5 instances the speed of Ca7riel y Paco Amoroso, which is one in all our greatest reveals ever.
I appeared on the information trigger I used to be actually curious to form of evaluate inside that first two days, which is after we first begin getting geographic information again. One p.c of the folks watching it had been in the USA. That is clearly a platform primarily based in the USA, however realistically, it isn’t a U.S. platform, is what I might name it. It’s completely a world platform, and I feel reveals like this actually mirror that.
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UNIDENTIFIED PUPPETEER #3: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PUPPETEER #4: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PUPPETEER #3: Uh-huh.
UNIDENTIFIED PUPPETEER #4: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PUPPETEER #3: Ah.
MINUTOS: (Singing in Spanish).
SAYRE: So what we’re seeing within the metrics – tremendous excessive proportion in Chile, one thing in, like, the 20 percentages, after which within the 10s is Mexico ‘trigger that is clearly a extremely vital present for Mexicans as effectively. And in addition they’re clearly simply an enormous inhabitants. After which the remainder of the breakdown is all through Latin America.
However that’s truly the next distribution by way of, like, throughout nation than we noticed with Ca7riel y Paco, which, on this similar timeframe, we noticed about, like,50-something p.c of our viewers coming from Argentina. All that to say, you will need to word that Santiago, Chile, earlier than any of this, has just about all the time been Tiny Desk’s No. 1 metropolis by way of largest variety of viewers, which is insane.
LIMBONG: We’re coming to the top of this yr’s El Tiny – proper? – which is if you program artists, primarily Latin American, who carry out in Spanish. As we dig into the information by how these movies do, is that reflective? Does that kind of – does that observe the same sample that you simply simply laid out?
SAYRE: You understand, Andrew, I do not know the person breakdown of every present, however what I can say is that within the final 5 years that we have been doing this El Tiny takeover that I have been at this job, our – I imply, all the demographics of Tiny Desk have truly basically modified. So after we began this in 2021, once I bought right here, the breakdown of prime international locations, so far as highest variety of viewers goes, was the USA, after all, after which it was one thing just like the U.Ok., Canada, and I neglect – two different European international locations. And at this level, the breakdown is prime nation nonetheless United States, then it is Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Spain – one thing like that. And I am positive in case you had been to take a look at it right now, Chile is…
LIMBONG: Is up there, yeah.
SAYRE: …On its method up.
LIMBONG: Yeah.
SAYRE: Of our prime 10 international locations, seven of them are out of Latin America. It has develop into an excellent pivotal platform for Latin America and in addition on the reverse. I imply, Latin America is an excellent vital viewers for us.
LIMBONG: Yeah, I imply, I feel it is clear by these numbers why Latin American artists are vital for the Tiny Desk. However what makes the Tiny Desk so vital for Latin artists?
SAYRE: It’s exhausting for me in the USA to totally conceptualize the madness of the fever over a few of these reveals. I imply, what I am listening to from mates in Chile is that you simply stroll onto the subway within the morning, and you’ll have adults watching this kids’s puppet present crying in collective collectively. And also you stroll down the streets, and you’ll’t not hear it. Like, you can’t not hear it within the streets of Chile proper now.
And that is, like – there’s the numbers of all of it, Andrew, however then there’s, like, the social, cultural influence. And from what I perceive, I imply, baseline, there’s only a phenomenon culturally on the planet – proper? – the place, like, U.S. platforms, U.S. awards, are actually huge validators. They’re indicators of actually huge visibility. I imply, it was described to me by their workforce, the 31 Minutos workforce, that to come back and play Tiny Desk for them was to get an Oscar. And so I feel that as a result of Tiny Desk is so direct-to-consumer – it is so uncooked, it is so true – it means so much to folks, I feel, to come back and sing what 31 Minutos did, which was fairly overtly political.
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MINUTOS: (Singing in Spanish).
SAYRE: To try this on a stage in the USA felt like a validation of Chilean expertise, of Chilean tradition, of Chilean social points, of Chilean – I imply, every part you may consider. To have that on an American stage was validating. And I feel additionally it is a port to the remainder of the world. It is a method – it is a transition by to get to Europe, to get to Asia, for Latin Individuals to actually discover worldwide publicity.
And the fascinating factor in all of that is that this present did not have a layover in the USA. Nobody’s speaking about it right here. It is bought 1% – I feel now it is as much as 2% of the viewers in the USA. The purpose will not be that it is a U.S. platform. On the finish of the day, in the way in which persons are speaking about it to me, they see it as a world platform.
LIMBONG: I feel it is unattainable to kind of separate the work you are doing with El Tiny and the takeover and President Trump’s crackdown on immigrants, largely from Spanish-speaking international locations. What’s it been like kind of navigating all of that and attempting to get Latin American artists right here, like, within the constructing, at NPR, for these performances?
SAYRE: Properly, there’s two elements of that to me, the primary being, virtually talking, visas are actually difficult proper now. So after we speak about getting artists to the Tiny Desk, I’ve needed to cancel quite a lot of reveals this yr as a result of artists could not get visas in time or visas in any respect. I’ve had quite a lot of questions on security issues, about what it could be like to come back right here. Loads of my artist mates and artist groups are telling me they’re actually attempting to keep away from coming right here altogether. They don’t seem to be eager to tour right here. In order that’s been a problem in that I am attempting to platform – use this, like I mentioned, world platform to shine a light-weight on a sure a part of the world, and it is exhausting to do this by the automobile of being bodily on this nation.
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UNIDENTIFIED PUPPETEER #5: (Non-English language spoken).
SAYRE: The opposite a part of all of that is the political implications of bringing artists who’re from Latin America, who’re Latino, who converse Spanish, at a second on this nation when, fairly objectively, to exist as an individual both from Latin America, of Latin American descent, to create artwork, to advertise artwork, to speak about Latino points, is political. You may see that with Dangerous Bunny and the Tremendous Bowl and the way in which that persons are reacting to that. You may see that with the way in which that clearly there’s been quite a lot of ICE crackdown. Like, you may see that throughout the board.
And it’s truthful, I feel, to say that, you already know, it’s a charged time. It’s controversial proper now to be selling Latin American artwork simply due to the state of this nation. And my job, in the end, is to not take a stance on that. My job is to point out the work of my group. That has all the time been my purpose with a Tiny Desk, is to simply convey artwork from the Spanish-language worlds, after which everybody else can determine how they really feel about that.
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MINUTOS: (Singing in Spanish).
LIMBONG: NPR’s Anamaria Sayre is the host of Alt.Latino and is a producer on the Tiny Desk. Anamaria, thanks a lot for chatting. This has been nice.
SAYRE: Thanks, Andrew. This was superior.
(SOUNDBITE OF TINY DESK CONCERT)
MINUTOS: (Singing in Spanish).
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