WFIU’s Local Favorite from the NPR Tiny Desk Concert: Jermaine from the South

NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest is underway, and episode 5 of NPR’s Tiny Desk Top Shelf, which picks ten favorites from the 6,000 entrants, featured a Bloomington musician. Jermaine from the South, aka Jermaine Butler, is Jermaine Butler is from the very south of the American South. He spent his early years in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and then lived in Baton Rouge until he came to Bloomington for a PhD. His 2024 album, The South, showed his skills as a hip-hop producer influenced by psychedelic rock, southern rap, and drum and bass from video games. His new album, including the song he submitted to the Tiny Desk Contest, is his first foray into rapping. Not only is he rapping, he’s rapping in Louisiana Creole, a language he only started to learn as he was starting the album. You wouldn’t know it. He looks confident and sounds great, and his music slaps.