Greetings from New York! We have just two shows left on this year’s Contest tour. Tonight, Ruby Ibarra will play in Brooklyn with Top Shelf favorite FORAGER and just-announced headliner Raveena. On Saturday, for the tour finale, Ruby will be returning to Washington, D.C., where she started this wild Tiny Desk journey back in May, to play alongside local favorite Oh He Dead. We can’t share who the surprise headliner will be for that show just yet, but we can tell you that it will be funky.
Paige Walter/NPR
We kicked off the East Coast tour leg earlier this week at an intimate show in Philadelphia with an eclectic lineup. De Tierra Caliente, a group whose members hail from Philadelphia and Puerto Rico, kicked off the show with their Latin fusion sound and got the whole crowd dancing. Ruby and her band played another powerful set, which included a new mash-up song called “The Realness/Game Up.” Sheer Mag headlined the show with a rocking performance (and no, it sadly did not include the guest bagpiper from the group’s Tiny Desk concert).
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On Monday, Contest judge, Tiny Desk host and Alt.Latino host Felix Contreras shared the best Latin music entries from the Contest on All Things Considered. He mentioned that he had a difficult time narrowing down entries because “the beauty of the Contest is [that] there are so many new names.” "Lejos de Aqui" by Charly Siaba, “Ashia” by Diego Herrera and “El Abstracto” by Taisha Estrada were among his favorites. You can check out the full piece to hear why these entries rose to the top for Felix.
And stay tuned for more Contest stories this summer: In the coming weeks, Robin Hilton will be sharing the best pop and folk entries on All Things Considered, plus, more artists will be sharing their own stories on Weekend Edition.
From the Desk,
NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest team
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