Goodbye From The Tiny Desk Contest (For Now)

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Tank and the Bangas at their last NPR Tiny Desk Contest tour stop in Austin, TX on May 24, 2017 at Independence Brewery. Lizzie Chen hide caption

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Lizzie Chen

Tank and the Bangas at their last NPR Tiny Desk Contest tour stop in Austin, TX on May 24, 2017 at Independence Brewery.

Lizzie Chen

Our 2017 Tiny Desk Contest has come to an end.

We've just returned from our tour, hosting concerts in 10 cities with lineups featuring 36 different bands who had entered the Tiny Desk Contest. The joy of seeing so much remarkable talent spoke to the spirit of the Contest as a whole, from the day we announced we were running it again (with help from our sponsors and fellow music-lovers Lagunitas Brewing Co.), through the time you spent gathering together to make and enter your videos, to the time we all spent together in your home scenes.

At each stop — in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Charleston, Nashville and Austin — we saw communities in love with the music of their town. We hope we helped fans discover new bands from their own neighborhoods. If this Contest teaches us anything, it's that there's great music all around you — you just may not know it yet. (You can still see everyone's entry — and even filter by location — on our website, look at photos from the tour in the slideshow below and read all about it on our blog.)

Among the many special things about this whole experience was the chance for us to travel with and get to know Tank and the Bangas. They're a remarkable band from New Orleans, combining a dash of Disney, the heart of hip-hop, the roll of R&B and the power of poetry and storytelling into a music like nothing else I've heard. It's the sound of celebration — a celebration of life, in its ups and downs, but most of all a celebration of other people.

In that way, they are perfect ambassadors for the Tiny Desk Contest. The group's will to unite people around music is something I identify strongly with — it's part of what I've dedicated my career to. It's what we've tried to do here in this Contest. And that's what every single one of you has done with us, together. So for all those who participated as artists or listeners, from my heart to yours, thank you. Thank you for reminding me why we on the Tiny Desk Contest team — and at NPR Music as a whole — do what we do:

For the love of music, for the love of community.