Spin’s August cover star Ty Dolla $ign will be the featured performer in an upcoming installment of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert video series. His full set has not yet been released, but NPR published a single song today: Ty’s rendition of the late Mac Miller‘s “Cinderella,” which Ty is featured on and cowrote.
Ty’s Tiny Desk taping was almost a year to the day after Miller’s last appearance on the show, and his tribute was apparently completely unplanned. “I reminded Ty that he sat at the desk almost a year to the day that his friend, Mac, delivered what would be one of his final performances,” NPR’s Bobby Carter writes. “The band paused and huddled. They mulled over a few notes in a matter of seconds then gave me a signal that they were ready.”
The performance they give of “Cinderella” is quietly brilliant. You can hear the spontaneity in the way Ty’s ridiculously good band ambles through the chord changes, and the tenderness in Ty’s improvised-sounding vocal runs toward the end of the song. Thundercat, who plays bass on the session, and Justus West, who plays guitar, were both close friends and collaborators with Mac, and both step out for virtuosic solos. Watch it below and read our cover story on Ty here.
