Hailing from Richmond, Virginia—a city that has given rise to luminaries like D’Angelo and Lonnie Liston Smith—the five-piece ensemble Butcher Brown delivered a performance at NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert that truly lived up to its reputation as a musical melting pot. Every time they take the stage, they play with nothing held back.

On Tiny Desk Concert

Before diving into the music itself, it’s worth acknowledging the significance of Tiny Desk Concert. Curated by NPR, this iconic series strips live performance down to its essentials.
Cramped behind producer Bob Boilen’s desk, surrounded by bookshelves and paperwork, artists are forced to abandon theatrical lighting and sonic polish. What remains is pure musicianship—sound, groove, and chemistry—laid bare within tight spatial and technical constraints. It’s precisely this vulnerability that makes Tiny Desk so compelling.

The Alchemy of Butcher Brown

Butcher Brown describe their sound as “Solar Music”—a fluid constellation of jazz, hip-hop, funk, soul, bossa nova, and even house. These are musicians who don’t merely blend genres; they metabolize them.
Rooted in the spirit of 1970s jazz yet seamlessly intertwined with contemporary rhythms, their playing exudes a masterful nonchalance. The result feels like the voice of seasoned old souls, dressed in the sleek attitude of modern street culture.

A Summer Afternoon in Motion

Their Tiny Desk set opens with “No Way Around It,” where the bass line immediately commands attention, compelling heads to nod almost instinctively. The atmosphere feels like a laid-back summer afternoon party by the beach—easygoing, yet brimming with kinetic energy.
Listening to them, one can’t help but make a “Stank Face”—that involuntary expression that appears when a groove hits just right, twisting your face as your inner voice shouts, this feels so good.

The performance unfolds like a finely tuned vintage engine, running smooth and strong. Drummer Corey Fonville’s razor-sharp syncopation locks in effortlessly with keyboardist DJ Harrison’s silky synth textures.
While every member possesses the chops to steal the spotlight, what truly defines Butcher Brown is their joy in interaction—the dialogue between instruments. It feels less like a formal concert and more like five longtime friends jamming in front of a bookshelf: warm, fiery, and irresistibly alive, pulling both body and soul into motion with every pulse of the beat.