Ever since winning the 2017 NPR Tiny Desk Contest, New Orleans-based have been staying very busy. Last year they released "The Heart, The Mind, The Soul," a record that combines music with spoken word poetry, an art form that lead singer Tank Ball has loved since she was a child. The record earned them their first GRAMMY award and they're on tour promoting it now.
Tank Ball recently caught up with 吉彩网网站's Brian Burns ahead of their show at Cat's Cradle on April 19.
This is the first Tank and the Bangas record that has specifically been released as a collection of poetry. Tell us about when you first fell in love with that art form.
My gosh. When did I first fall in love with it? I think probaby, reading my sister's diary, which I had no business doing. It was mixed with her poetry, and I just learned all the poems by heart. I just thought she was so dope.
How did it feel when you found out this record was nominated for a GRAMMY?
Oh, I was just so happy, because I definitely wanted it to be, and when it was, it was just perfect. I was scared that it wouldn't be considered because of all of its musical elements, but I really am a musician and a poet all in one.
Now tell us how it felt when you found out you won the GRAMMY.
There really are no words. It's just a feeling of excitement and you just can't believe it. I just remember trying to hurry and run up to the stage before the music starts and I'm thinking "Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God."
One of my favorite tracks on the record is "Little Things" which features Yaya Bey. What inspired that one?
It sounds so crazy, but it was literally inspired by seeing a bug flying around in the studio, and somebody just killed it. And I was like, dang, bug wasn't even doing nothing, you know. So it just made me think about little Black boys and how easily they are taken out of the world for just being, for just existing. I remember Rudy Francisco had a poem about a spider and about somebody being really scared of the spider for just existing and asking someone to kill it. And he said, I would hope that if the roles were reversed, that someone would send me some kindness and not kill me for just existing.
Let's go back to 2017 when Tank and the Bangas won the third Tiny Desk Contest at NPR. How did that affect your career?
It changed everything, really. When we were on the Tiny Desk tour Bob Boilen kept telling us that our lives were about to change. I didn't know why he kept saying that at the time, but now I know. It definitely was a life changer for us, because we always were putting on these electrifying shows, whether we had one or 1 million people there. Our managers knew that we just needed the platform for people to see what this group could do. So that's what it did. It gave us a platform. Sometimes all you need is a platform so people can see what you've been doing.
