Megan Thee Stallion Tries Out A New Sound With Phony Ppl At NPR’s Tiny Desk Fest

Fans who were waiting to see some of their favorite artists finally grace NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts series have been blessed with a treat over the past week, as NPR’s Tiny Desk Fest opens the beloved web series to the public and gives an expanded array of performers the opportunity to squeeze in and show their skills in music’s most intimate environment. The first performer for the Fest was none other than Texas rising star Megan Thee Stallion, who switched up her usual boisterous, bass-heavy sound for something a lot smoother alongside veteran, Brooklyn-based hip-hop-soul band Phony Ppl, fresh off their own Tiny Desk appearance in March.

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While the full performance hasn’t been made available just yet — NPR promises “we’ll present the finished product soon” on its website — a few clips were tweeted out as the performance streamed live, including one that teased a brand new collaboration between Phony Ppl and Thee Stallion which saw the band play a light, jazz-influenced beat over which Megan delivered a few of her typical, rapid-fire raps from a stool in the center of the band’s formation, surrounded by boxy blue lights that set the atmosphere for a more chilled performance than her usual, high-energy appearances at other festivals like Real Street Fest and Rolling Loud or her Saturday Night Live debut backing up Chance The Rapper this weekend..

From the looks of things, “Hot Girl Fall” is off to a strong start, as is the NPR Tiny Desk Fest, which teases that tonight’s performer will be a “veteran rapper with multiple No. 1 albums” on its site. You can watch that tonight at 7 PM EST here.