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Sugar Tongue Slim, Live In Concert: SXSW 2012

The first thing that jumps out about rising rapper Sugar Tongue Slim is his playful, funny, generous spirit. Surrounded by a lively and crackling backing band — a laptop, turntables, bass and a full drum kit — STS cut a smiling and conspiratorial figure on stage at NPR Music's SXSW day party, held Thursday at The Parish in Austin, Texas. Sandwiched on a bill between the jumpy Venezuelan rock band La Vida Boheme and the atmospheric pop outfit Polica, the poetry-slam veteran won the crowd over quickly ("I'm gonna make y'all work as hard as I work today," he teased between songs) and then let his appropriately sugar-tongued, impeccable flow take it from there.

Slim's band sneaked in a tricky array of samples — including slick appropriations of Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know" and Kavinsky's "Nightcall" — but they were all secondary to a live band that kept the beat and low end as flesh-and-blood as it gets. The goodwill kept flowing from there, with STS making light of his mid-afternoon time slot ("I'm gonna keep saying 'tonight,' 'cause it's cooler") by way of launching into an inspired take on his winning single "Here Tonight." A major talent with high-profile endorsements — and a killer debut in 2011'sThe Illustrious — STS looks fully primed for "We heard him when ... " status.

Credits

Producers: Robin Hilton, Amy Schriefer; Video by: XI Media; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)