Immanuel Wilkins: Tiny Desk Concert
Suraya Mohamed | February 24, 2026Always inspirational, the music of saxophonist and composer Immanuel Wilkins is also heavy and thought provoking. In the harmonic tension of his music you can hear sepia tones of the Black experience — an ancient and modern struggle told through melody and overlaid with hope. Complex time signatures swing and sway with spiritual incantations that instill reflection and peace.
We've had the good fortune to showcase works from across Wilkins' exceptional catalog. His Tiny Desk (home) concert features selections from his debut album, Omega. Here at the Desk, he opens with "AFTERLIFE RESIDENCE TIME" from his Grammy-nominated album, Blues Blood, a piece that traces Black trauma passed down by the generations through blood, which contains salt. Sodium has a long duration of residence, or time that a substance remains present, and this song is a portrait of that construct. "Fugitive Ritual, Selah," from The 7th Hand, is a hymn to the Black church and how its Sunday rituals provide the freedom to exalt, or Selah, and pause for the Holy Spirit. "THE BIG COUNTRY" is a new song from an upcoming three-volume project recorded live at The Village Vanguard. Wilkins tells me, "It's not a 'concept album,' so to speak, but rather it's about capturing the internal technologies and logics of the band as the theory."
His masterful band, with Micah Thomas on piano, bassist Ryoma Takenaga and drummer Kweku Sumbry, has a special synergy. "There's so much that happens through the music even outside of the normative realm of 'language' that I feel is important to capture in this new stage of this unit," Wilkins tells me. "I'm just always trying to push the band to new places, do something unique for myself and for the Tiny Desk audience. I thought it was important for us to attempt to bring the heat and keep it as hot as possible."
SET LIST
"AFTERLIFE RESIDENCE TIME"
"Fugitive Ritual, Selah"
"THE BIG COUNTRY"
MUSICIANS
Immanuel WIlkins: alto sax
Micah Thomas: piano
Ryoma Takenaga: bass
Kweku Sumbry: drums
TINY DESK TEAM
Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Director: Joshua Bryant
Audio Engineer/Mix: Josephine Nyounai
Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter
Video Editor: Nikki Birch
Videographers: Joshua Bryant, Kara Frame, Maia Stern
Audio Engineer/Director: Josh Newell
Production Assistants: Dora Levite, Dhanika Pineda
Photographer: Alanté Serene
Tiny Desk Team: Ashley Pointer, Felix Contreras
Executive Director: Sonali Mehta
Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson, Robin Hilton
#nprmusic #tinydesk #immanuelwilkins Receive SMS online on sms24.me
TubeReader video aggregator is a website that collects and organizes online videos from the YouTube source. Video aggregation is done for different purposes, and TubeReader take different approaches to achieve their purpose.
Our try to collect videos of high quality or interest for visitors to view; the collection may be made by editors or may be based on community votes.
Another method is to base the collection on those videos most viewed, either at the aggregator site or at various popular video hosting sites.
TubeReader site exists to allow users to collect their own sets of videos, for personal use as well as for browsing and viewing by others; TubeReader can develop online communities around video sharing.
Our site allow users to create a personalized video playlist, for personal use as well as for browsing and viewing by others.
@YouTubeReaderBot allows you to subscribe to Youtube channels.
By using @YouTubeReaderBot Bot you agree with YouTube Terms of Service.
Use the @YouTubeReaderBot telegram bot to be the first to be notified when new videos are released on your favorite channels.
Look for new videos or channels and share them with your friends.
You can start using our bot from this video, subscribe now to Immanuel Wilkins: Tiny Desk Concert
What is YouTube?
YouTube is a free video sharing website that makes it easy to watch online videos. You can even create and upload your own videos to share with others. Originally created in 2005, YouTube is now one of the most popular sites on the Web, with visitors watching around 6 billion hours of video every month.
