NPR Music Announces Second Annual Tiny Desk Contest

Bay Area bands, start your engines. Er, clear your desks? NPR’s second annual Tiny Desk Contest is upon us.

The contest, which invites artists to compete for the chance to shoot their own Tiny Desk Concert at NPR’s studios in Washington, D.C., kicks off Jan. 12, 2016 and will accept entries through Feb. 2. See details here.

The inaugural contest saw some 7,000 submissions from all 50 states during the seven-week submission period — but in the end, the winner was Oakland native Fantastic Negrito, a bluesman who puts on an incredible live show, with an incredible back story to boot. The winning video was shot in an impressively cramped freight elevator in Oakland.

In the nearly 10 months since his win, the artist (real name: Xavier Dphrepaulezz) has ridden an impressive wave of national buzz, including a blowout performance at South By Southwest and a high-profile spot at San Francisco’s own Outside Lands — though that latter scheduled performance was replaced with an even higher-profile, arguably unjustified arrest.

Like Fantastic Negrito, the 2016 winner will appear at a taping of NPR’s Ask Me Another and at other events hosted by NPR Music and sponsor Lagunitas across the U.S.

To enter, artists must be at least 21 years old and live in the United States; video submissions are to be no longer than 10 minutes. See the full rules and regulations here.

And for a shot of local pride, check out Fantastic Negrito’s Tiny Desk Concert below.