Video: Kamasi Washington's Tiny Desk Concert Premieres

Multi-instrumentalist, composer and bandleader Kamasi Washington’s performance for NPR Music’s acclaimed “Tiny Desk Concert” series has premiered. Watch it now!

Joined by Brandon Coleman (keys), Patrice Quinn (vocals), Miles Mosley (upright bass), Tony Austin (drums), DJ Battlecat (percussion), Rickey Washington (saxophone, flute) and Ryan Porter (trombone), Washington performs a selection of tracks from across his discography, including “Street Fighter Mas” from Heaven and Earth, “Rhythm Changes” from The Epic and “Lesanu” and “Asha The First” from his latest album, Fearless Movement.

Released this past May via Young, Fearless Movement continues to receive widespread critical acclaim and features collaborations with André 3000, Thundercat, BJ The Chicago Kid, funk icon George Clinton, Inglewood rapper D Smoke, Taj and Ras Austin of Coast Contra, Terrace Martin, Patrice Quinn, Brandon Coleman, DJ Battlecat and more. The album features singles “Get Lit” with George Clinton and D Smoke, “Prologue” and “Dream State” with André 3000, as well as “The Garden Path,” which Washington performed for the first time on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.”

Washington celebrated the release of Fearless Movement with an extensive North American tour that included stops in New York, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, Newport Jazz Festival and the Hollywood Bowl Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, which he co-curated with Herbie Hancock for the second year in a row. Additionally, he will embark on a European tour in March 2025—see full routing below and get tickets HERE.

Kamasi Washington is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and bandleader born and raised in Los Angeles. His four bodies of work to date—The Epic, Harmony of Difference, an EP originally commissioned for the 2017 Whitney Biennial, Heaven and Earth and Fearless Movement—are among the most acclaimed of this century. 

As Told To G/D Thyself, his short film companion to Heaven and Earth, debuted at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival to widespread acclaim. In 2020, Washington scored the Michelle Obama documentary Becoming, earning Emmy and Grammy nominations for his work. Also in 2020, Washington co-founded the supergroup Dinner Party with longtime friends and collaborators Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper and 9th Wonder—their EP Dinner Party (Dessert) was subsequently nominated for a Grammy for Best Progressive R&B Album. In 2021, he contributed a cover of Metallica’s “My Friend of Misery” to the band’s Metallica Blacklist covers project. Washington has toured the world over and collaborated and shared stages with Kendrick Lamar, Florence + the Machine, Herbie Hancock and many more.

Photo credit: Vincent Haycock

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