Vagabon: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Feb. 23, 2018 | Bob Boilen -- Laetitia Tamko, the artist known as Vagabon, is a 25-year-old, Cameroon-born musician with a big, tenor voice just bursting with new musical ideas. I’ve seen her as a solo artist, with a band and, here at the Tiny Desk, both solo and with a bassist. Her pride shines bright in her smile and as well it should. For someone self-taught and who’s been playing for only the past four years, her arrangements are adept and thoughtful in an independent rock music scene that can often be lyrically lazy and texturally tepid. Vagabon’s poetry speaks to love. You can hear it in “Cold Apartment.“ While she closes the Tiny Desk set with it, it was the first song she ever wrote and one that came to her during a difficult time in her life. “And we sat on my cold apartment floor Where we thought we would stay in love Stay in love“ Though all the songs here are about love, Vagabon also speaks proudly to black women on her 2017 album, Infinite Worlds. There aren’t a lot of black women in this bed