See Cordae Share the Stories Behind the Songs for Tiny Desk Concert

Cordae paired his hit singles and new album tracks with live instrumentation for the rapper’s performance on NPR’s Tiny Desk.

The 20-minute set was a homecoming of sorts for Cordae, as NPR’s Washington D.C. office is close to the DMV (a.k.a. the Washington metropolitan area) where he grew up. “This is a hometown show for me, so I’m expecting a biased amount of love from y’all,” he said.

Cordae largely highlighted tracks from his 2024 LP The Crossroads, like the set-opening “Saturday Mornings,” “Nothings Promised,” and “06 Dreamin,” and shared the stories behind the songs on some occasions.

“06 Dreamin,” Cordae explained, was inspired by “irony,” as his mother was a singer who never made it, but has been able to live out her superstar dreams through her son; the rapper also revealed that he samples one of his mom’s songs on the track, and his mom joined him on vocals for the Tiny Desk performance.

“C Carter,” off 2022’s From a Birds Eye View, was written about a candy-painted Chevy Impala that his uncle drove — “the coolest shit ever,” he said — while “Nothings Promised” is “really deep to my heart.”

Cordae closed out his Tiny Desk performance with his just-turned double-platinum single “RNP,” off his 2019 debut album, The Lost Boy.