How do we find beauty in a broken world? This is the question that Ganavya's music asks, but lets you answer. Raised in the Hindu tradition of the harikatha — where she would sing poems called abhangs ("songs without endings") along a pilgrimage route — Ganavya has spent a life in contemplation. At the Tiny Desk, she sings the poems of today in the language of today.
Set in an aqueous groove by bassist Max Ridley and harpist Charles Overton, Ganavya's "Land" is a hymn of thanksgiving, with words by the Palestinian American poet Suheir Hammad. "Not a Burden" is a lullaby that Ganavya wrote for her mother — she asks the audience to sing with her, though it's hard not to get lost in her hypnotic vocalese. The late Wayne Shorter, who contributed a Buddhist chant for one of her albums, gave Ganavya some advice after hearing the lyrics for "draw something beautiful," a song she'd written as a younger person. "He very very lovingly and quickly dressed me down," she recounted to me. " 'Yeah, that's great when you were 14. You're not that anymore, so sing what it is.' We reckon with the fact that we are something beautiful in this world that would let us draw something beautiful."
There's something called the hagstone, an eye-shaped stone with a hole in it. As we got ready to sound check, Ganavya shared its folklore with me: "If you carry it around with you, it's supposed to keep you safe because evil does not like what's large. Only something small can fit through it. I was raised to believe that as long as you love everything that is small in this world, that you'll be safe. And that's my favorite part of Tiny Desk: There's not a single musician who didn't start from small."
The final song here is a setting for "At last…Another's heartbeat," a poem written by Marcellus "Khaliifah" Williams, a man who — in the face of death — still chose to see the beauty of this world. This song, not yet recorded, is a communal one. "There is so much beauty and comfort in being in love and just being," we sing with her, over and over, as a prayer. The last word is a whisper — like a last breath — then the silence of being.
SET LIST
- "Land"
- "Not a Burden"
- "draw something beautiful"
- "At last…Another's heartbeat"
MUSICIANS
- Ganavya: vocals
- Charles Overton: harp
- Max Ridley: bass
- Chris Pattishall: piano
- Shahzad Ismaily: guitar
- Fabiola Reyna: guitar
- Felix Grimm: percussion
- Eden Girma: background vocals
- Manizeh: background vocals
- Zoe Rose dePaz: background vocals
TINY DESK TEAM
- Producer: Lars Gotrich
- Director/Editor: Maia Stern
- Audio Director/Mix: Josh Newell
- Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
- Videographers: Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Kara Frame, Elizabeth Gillis
- Audio Engineer: Neil Tevault
- Production Assistants: Dhanika Pineda, Dora Levite
- Photographer: Alanté Serene
- Tiny Desk Team: Ashley Pointer, Felix Contreras
- Copy Editor: Hazel Cills
- Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
- Executive Director: Sonali Mehta
- Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson, Robin Hilton
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