The Tiny Desk set was transformed temporarily into the Pink Pony Club for Chappell Roan‘s debut performance on the web concert series posted Thursday (March 21).
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The 26-year-old rising pop star was joined behind NPR’s literal tiny desk by an all-female band, each musician outfitted in a pink collared shirt and matching blue eye shadow, red lipstick combos. In a pink dress, drag-inspired, Marie Antoinette-ish makeup and a tiara, Chappell was clearly the star of the show.
Between her performances of “Casual,” “Pink Pony Club,” “Picture You,” “California” and “Red Wine Supernova” — all five of which appear on the singer’s debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess — the Missouri native even divulged one of her beauty secrets to the crowd.
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“Though it looks like it’s all my hair, it’s a wig,” she said of her highly teased red ‘do, which she adorned with butterfly clips. “It’s so hot. Is there a trash bag in [the wig]? That’s how we got it so big.”
Toward the end of her set, Roan confessed that performing on Tiny Desk has long been a dream of hers. “I love NPR, guys, I’m serious — I donate!” she added, earning ecstatic applause from her audience of NPR staffers.
The musician is currently touring with Olivia Rodrigo as an opener for the “Drivers License” singer’s Guts World Tour. Later this year, Roan will hit the road on her own headlining trek dubbed The Midwest Princess Tour.
Roan was first linked to Rodrigo through their shared producer, Dan Nigro. Last year, the engineer launched his own label imprint, Amusement Records, with the “Hot to Go” artist as his signee.
“My world opened up, and so did my music,” Roan told Billboard in June of writing songs with Nigro after getting dropped from her first label, Atlantic Records, in 2020. “My music reflected the feelings of my first time in a gay club, my first time falling in love with a woman, my first time feeling homesick — I had to go through all those experiences, that pain and suffering, to rebirth myself into where I am now.”
Watch Chappell Roan’s Tiny Desk performance above.