Source: YouTube / NPR
After months of waiting, fans of legendary New Orleans rapper Juvenile finally got what they had been waiting for. Back in April, a fan floated the idea of getting the 400 Degreez artist to perform an NPR Tiny Desk concert. It took Juvenile four days to see and finally respond to the tweet. When he did, it surely wasn’t the response fans probably expected.
Apparently, the 46 year old was not interested. In fact, Juvenile didn’t even know what a Tiny Desk was. Soon after, some fans obviously hipped him to the concert series because the next day his tone changed. In a follow up tweet, Juvie gave his fans a glimmer of hope in the form of a challenge.
He told fans that if he got enough retweets on the tweet, he would consider doing a concert. Juvenile also shamelessly plugged his new drink. In March, he collaborated with Urban South Brewery, the largest craft brewery in New Orleans and one of the leading breweries in the South to release Juvie Juice (a hard version of a half lemonade, half iced tea).
It’s apparent that fans were not joking about wanting to see Juvenile perform his hits in an intimate setting. In under 24 hours, he got the 10,000 retweets that he requested. He once again took to the social media platform to announce that he now has a NPR Tiny Desk concert locked in. He appreciated the followers for the love and assured them that he would put on a one of a kind show. That is exactly what he did!
During his 23-minute set, Juvie performed special renditions of ten of the biggest songs in his catalog including “Slow Motion,” “Set It Off” and “Rodeo.” Juvenile was backed by a full band and super producer Mannie Fresh, who was behind most of the timeless hits Juvenile performed. Juvenile showed love to his Hot Boys cohorts by performing “I Need A Hot Girl” although he was only featured in the video. He followed up that track with “Project B*tch” with a special twist. He enlisted two other New Orleans natives Trombone Shorty and Jon Batiste to help him and didn’t let fans let it go unnoticed. He asked “Who ever brought two Grammy winners to Tiny Desk?”
The epic performance closed out with Juvenile bringing out cellist and violinist from the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra to perform a special orchestral rendition of arguably his biggest song “Back That Azz Up.” Juvie showed that he cared about his fans’ well being because before he started performing the smash hit, he encouraged all the women in the crowd to stretch really quick so they didn’t pull anything while backing it up. Juvenile’s Tiny Desk was definitely one to remember and will probably encourage NPR to recruit more artists that we never knew we needed to see on the platform. Fans couldn’t help but to give Juvenile his flowers for the show he put on! Scroll down to check out some of the best fan reactions from an amazing night! Let us know what your favorite song was that Juvenile performed and who else you’d want to see do a Tiny Desk Concert in the comments!
