Ari Lennox is out here working hard. Taking a break from opening up for Lizzo on tour, the DMV native returns home to the nation’s capital to perform for NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series.
Wearing an orange body-hugging sleeveless satin dress, Lennox goes into a setlist to perform a number of her jams from her debut album, Shea Butter Baby.
She kicks the intimate performance off with “Speak to Me.” While omitting a few lines from the song, she allows her talented band to fill in the blanks
Dishing out compliments to the ladies in the crowd and warning them in the same breath, she slides into “Pop.” Midway into the performance, she mashes the song with an early career selection “La La La La” and is joined in harmony by the song’s producer and co-writer David James.
Laying on the charm and cracking the crowd up between songs, Lennox then goes into “New Apartment.” Towards the end, she enlists the crowd to join her in a call and response of the last few lines of the empowering track.
“This next song is for my natural sisters. I made it for us ‘cause we sexy and fine and I feel like a lot of people sleep on our gloriousness so this for my natural brown queens,” Ari prefaces before she caps the performance with her hit song “Shea Butter Baby.”
Watch the silky stylings of Ari Lennox on “Tiny Desk” above.
