While the rest of New Orleans was busy celebrating another Fat Tuesday, the women and men of Tank and The Bangas were celebrating something else entirely.
The local R&B and soul outfit—led by Tarriona “Tank” Ball—was named the winner of NPR’s 2017 Tiny Desk Contest, a nationwide competition that featured over 6,000 entrants. Put on by NPR’s famed Tiny Desk concert series, the contest saw thousands of musical acts submit Tiny Desk-style videos, which were then judges by a panel of 10 radio broadcasters and musicians.
OffBeat Magazine cover, July 2015.
“Tank and the Bangs is like a psychedelic joy rap explosion. Like a female Sly Stone teleporting into 2017 and landing in New Orleans,” said Phish guitarist and contest judge Trey Anastasio. “I love this video. It makes me want to be there.”
The victory comes with more than just bragging rights, too. Tank and The Bangas will now head to Washington, DC, where they will play their own, real-deal Tiny Desk concert. They also won the opportunity to appear at a taping of NPR’s Ask Me Another and tour the country with Lagunitas and NPR. That’s all in addition to the airplay they’ll be getting on NPR’s All Thing Considered, and the featured interview that was published on the network’s site yesterday.
“One of the beautiful things that I guess I could say about Tank and Bangas, that a lot of people even from New Orleans know, is that we are very different from what is traditionally New Orleans,” Ball told NPR. “New Orleans has a good ground of beautiful, great music that’s … jazzerific, if that’s even a word, that’s brassalicious and definitely bounceaholic-anism. But if I was to take anything from New Orleans — definitely just being an entertainer.”
“In New Orleans, you could walk down the street and someone is standing still just for money. There are children tap-dancing for change. There’s a brass band on the corner almost every night,” She continued. “And you just know that no matter what you’re going through, that New Orleans wants you to know, for some reason, that it will be all right if we put a beat to your pain. It’s just something about walking those streets and seeing people, old [people], start dancing like young boys when they hear certain music. You want to always carry on that tradition of what New Orleans is.”
Recent years have been kind to Ball and her band. Not only did the singer grace the cover of OffBeat in July 2015, she and fellow Bangas vocalist Angelika Jospeh contributed their shops to Norah Jones’ single “Flipside” in 2016.
2017 is gearing up to be even better, as Tank and Bangas are hard at work on a new album. The record will be a follow up to what is currently their only full-length studio album, 2013’s Think Tank. You can see them at Blue Nile in New Orleans on Saturday, March 11, or at the city’s French Quarter Fest on Saturday, April 8.
