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When PWR BTTM takes the stage, it doesn't take long to figure out what you're going to get. From the first glitter-smeared seconds of the set-opening "Silly," the band came to shred and swagger with infectious joy, complete with backbends and solos and spangly outfits — at least one of which wouldn't survive the band's set at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas, recorded live for NPR Music Wednesday night.

But the New England pop-punk band, expanded since its formation from a duo to a four-piece with the addition of keyboardist Cameron West and bassist Nicholas Cummins, also paused for lengthy, heartfelt, frequently hilarious digressions. For every aside about the power and importance of music as a way to unite and protect the vulnerable, Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce would hold court about vegan hollandaise sauce, the importance of tipping bartenders, or a fervently expressed desire to "drown in Topo Chico."

PWR BTTM weighted its set heavily toward material from the forthcoming Pageant, due out May 12 — and even brought out Alynda Lee Segarra of Hurray For The Riff Raff to join in for a shared performance of its song "LOL." And, in keeping with the free-wheeling banter that preceded it, Hopkins had to pause to praise Segarra's outfit: "You look like Patti Smith if she had an Etsy store." For PWR BTTM, a perfectly balanced cocktail of blunt aggression and pointed playfulness — wryly self-effacing but always boldly rendered — proved virtually impossible to resist.

SET LIST
"Silly"
"Ugly Cherries"
"Big Beautiful Day"
"Answer My Text"
"New Trick"
"I Wanna Boi"
"LOL"
"Trade"

CREDITS
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Mito Habe-Evans; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Colin Marshall, Kelly West; Editor: Annabel Edwards; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Photo: Adam Kissick for NPR; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

If you've only heard Lizzo's hit "Good As Hell" — and if you haven't, listen now, I'll wait — you might think the Twin Cities singer is a funny and ingratiating but fairly straightforward purveyor of self-affirmation and charismatic confidence. But as her joyful and explosive live show unfolded, complete with the arrival of the ecstatic backup dancers she calls "The Big Girls," it became clear that Lizzo has something more powerful going on.

Presiding over what she called "an all-female crew," Lizzo opened her set at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — with "Worship," a playful-but-potent demand to be treated right. ("Patiently, quietly, faithfully / Worship me.") But Lizzo also threw a telling cover into her Stubb's set list: a version of "Drone Bomb Me" by the singer ANOHNI, whom Lizzo described as "my hero" during Wednesday's show.

For a singer whose songs are so focused on celebration — and whose message of comfort with one's own identity and appearance is so crucial to her music — the inclusion of such a dark song seemed striking at first. "Drone Bomb Me," like much of ANOHNI's recent material, processes feelings of alienation through violent, masochistic imagery. As sung by Lizzo, placed among the cheerful likes of "Good As Hell" and "Coconut Oil," the song sent a different message: Lizzo's music, like ANOHNI's, is about loudly, provocatively and fearlessly making space for oneself in the world. As fun as Lizzo's music is, it feels like a revolution, too.

Credits:
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Director: Mito Habe-Evans; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Colin Marshall, Kelly West; Editor: Morgan Noelle Smith; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

"I'm ready for the world," Alynda Lee Segarra sings in the chorus of the rousing "Hungry Ghost" — and her band's set told that simple truth again and again. In the past seven or eight years, Hurray For The Riff Raff has blossomed slowly but fully, transforming its sound from intense-but-delicate one-woman bedroom recordings to the rip-roaring full-band jams that dominated the group's set at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas, recorded live for NPR Music Wednesday night.

Segarra commanded rapt attention throughout a string of powerful songs from Hurray For The Riff Raff's new album The Navigator, which examines her Puerto Rican heritage and a search for what she calls "my lost humanity." Wearing a homemade T-shirt that read "No Human Is Illegal," Segarra roared through songs that seethed with coiled intensity — even the slow-burning ballad "Fourteen Floors," for which Segarra took over on keyboards, was performed with to-the-skies power. So, yeah: Ready for the world.

Credits:
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Colin Marshall; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Mito Habe-Evans, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Kelly West; Editor: Morgan Noelle Smith; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

Nina Diaz and Y La Bamba's Luz Elena Mendoza have never played together, but after NPR Music paired them in the courtyard of St. David's Episcopal Church for a late evening performance, we're beginning to wonder why not. They've both played the Tiny Desk (Diaz twice, once with Girl In A Coma) and both navigate complex emotions and notions of identity in their music. Also, they just sing beautifully together, Mendoza's yodel swirling in Diaz's gritty croon.

Mendoza shares a brand-new song here, "Living Room." When the two harmonize its confession — "I feel like I've been undressing all my thoughts in front of you" — it is, in tandem, starkly intimate and separate.

Nina Diaz's "January 9th" comes from the excellent solo album she released last year, Beat Is Dead. It's a bluesy ballad with a through line of '60s pop, a tribute to her late grandmother, cooed and howled into a warm Austin evening.

CREDITS
Producers: Bob Boilen, Mito Habe-Evans; Director/Videographer: Nickolai Hammar; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Photo: Aaron Rogosin for NPR; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann.

For Big Thief, fragility and power come inextricably intertwined. Singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker may let her songs sit and seethe for long stretches, but those slow builds only maximize the catharsis of the big, loud, high-volume bursts of force that follow.

Onstage at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — Lenker brought a mix of new material and songs from last year's terrific Masterpiece. Throughout the set, Big Thief's sound billowed out in grand waves, matching the large stage and open-air setting, and by the end of "Masterpiece" (the band's signature song so far), Lenker was on her back, lost in the intensity of the moment. It felt like just the beginning for a band with a big, bright future.

Credits
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Colin Marshall; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Mito Habe-Evans, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Kelly West; Editor: Annabel Edwards; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

Lydia Ainsworth performs "Afterglow" at SXSW.

Lydia Ainsworth doesn't so much subvert pop music, but skates around its edges. You can hear that all over Darling Of The Afterglow, a surreal album that blurs melodies and rote formats with a sense of mystery.

She told NPR in January, "I wondered, what if you could create a state in which your sensations and memories live on forever? What would that look like? What would that feel like? What would that sound like?" Well, we know what it sounds like now and found a place that maybe looks like it, too. During the SXSW music festival, we asked Lydia Ainsworth to perform in Raum Industries' Optic Obscura installation. Surrounded by dim, long-hanging optical fibers that look like an infinity room of cat's whiskers, she sings a stripped-down version of the slow-burning "Afterglow," accompanied only by an upright bass and light percussion.

SET LIST

"Afterglow"
CREDITS

Producers: Bob Boilen, Mito Habe-Evans; Director/Videographer: Nickolai Hammar; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Photo: Nickolai Hammar; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann.

"We're gonna play a whole bunch of new songs for you," said Amelia Meath as she introduced her electro-pop duo Sylvan Esso, adding, "because we're tired of playing the old ones."

The phrase "we're gonna play new songs" often elicits groans from the crowd. But for Sylvan Esso — whose second album, What Now, comes out April 28 — the promise of new material was, three years after the release of their debut record, cause for elation for the huge audience packed into Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas, where Meath and producer Nick Sanborn played a set recorded live for NPR Music Wednesday night.

Though Sylvan Esso eventually trotted out a few highlights from 2014's self-titled debut — "Coffee," "H.S.K.T.," "Hey Mami" — the songs from What Now hit hard, stoking an as-far-as-the-eye-could-see field of ecstatic dancing to match the artful and passionate gyrations on stage. The effect captured and elicited what felt like genuine ecstasy; a loose and liberating letting-go that was an absolute blast to witness — even before Meath broke into a bit of Beyoncé's "Flawless."

Note: At the band's request, this video features three of Sylvan Esso's new songs. It is not the full performance:

Set List:
"Radio"
"Kick Jump Twist"
"Die Young"

Credits
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Colin Marshall; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Mito Habe-Evans, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Kelly West; Editor: Annabel Edwards; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Photo: Adam Kissick for NPR; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

If you've only heard Lizzo's hit "Good As Hell" — and if you haven't, listen now, I'll wait — you might think the Twin Cities singer is a funny and ingratiating but fairly straightforward purveyor of self-affirmation and charismatic confidence. But as her joyful and explosive live show unfolded, complete with the arrival of the ecstatic backup dancers she calls "The Big Girls," it became clear that Lizzo has something more powerful going on.

Presiding over what she called "an all-female crew," Lizzo opened her set at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — with "Worship," a playful-but-potent demand to be treated right. ("Patiently, quietly, faithfully / Worship me.") But Lizzo also threw a telling cover into her Stubb's set list: a version of "Drone Bomb Me" by the singer ANOHNI, whom Lizzo described as "my hero" during Wednesday's show.

For a singer whose songs are so focused on celebration — and whose message of comfort with one's own identity and appearance is so crucial to her music — the inclusion of such a dark song seemed striking at first. "Drone Bomb Me," like much of ANOHNI's recent material, processes feelings of alienation through violent, masochistic imagery. As sung by Lizzo, placed among the cheerful likes of "Good As Hell" and "Coconut Oil," the song sent a different message: Lizzo's music, like ANOHNI's, is about loudly, provocatively and fearlessly making space for oneself in the world. As fun as Lizzo's music is, it feels like a revolution, too.

Credits:
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Director: Mito Habe-Evans; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Colin Marshall, Kelly West; Editor: Morgan Noelle Smith; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

DakhaBrakha performs "Kolyskova" at SXSW.

To call what DakhaBrakha does "folk music" completely misses a world of inspiration and sound, both here on Earth and perhaps elsewhere. The mostly-acoustic, utterly unique Ukrainian band mixes traditions from its homeland, but goes wide too, with West African rhythms and Indian drones to create a wild, thrilling texture (especially live).

Late at night, we asked DakhaBrakha to bring its cello, keyboard, accordion – and tall, wool hats! — to the balcony of a hotel overlooking Austin, Texas. They played "Kolyskova" from 2010's Light, but the band only ever calls it "Lullaby." It's a quiet, contemplative song that the band says is a "connecting of several lullabies" with "philosophical lyrics that [say] we have time for everything — time to laugh and cry, time to live and die."

CREDITS

Producers: Bob Boilen, Mito Habe-Evans; Director/Videographer: Nickolai Hammar; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Photo: Nickolai Hammar; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann.

If you've only heard Lizzo's hit "Good As Hell" — and if you haven't, listen now, I'll wait — you might think the Twin Cities singer is a funny and ingratiating but fairly straightforward purveyor of self-affirmation and charismatic confidence. But as her joyful and explosive live show unfolded, complete with the arrival of the ecstatic backup dancers she calls "The Big Girls," it became clear that Lizzo has something more powerful going on.

Presiding over what she called "an all-female crew," Lizzo opened her set at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — with "Worship," a playful-but-potent demand to be treated right. ("Patiently, quietly, faithfully / Worship me.") But Lizzo also threw a telling cover into her Stubb's set list: a version of "Drone Bomb Me" by the singer ANOHNI, whom Lizzo described as "my hero" during Wednesday's show.

For a singer whose songs are so focused on celebration — and whose message of comfort with one's own identity and appearance is so crucial to her music — the inclusion of such a dark song seemed striking at first. "Drone Bomb Me," like much of ANOHNI's recent material, processes feelings of alienation through violent, masochistic imagery. As sung by Lizzo, placed among the cheerful likes of "Good As Hell" and "Coconut Oil," the song sent a different message: Lizzo's music, like ANOHNI's, is about loudly, provocatively and fearlessly making space for oneself in the world. As fun as Lizzo's music is, it feels like a revolution, too.

Credits:
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Director: Mito Habe-Evans; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Colin Marshall, Kelly West; Editor: Morgan Noelle Smith; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

For Big Thief, fragility and power come inextricably intertwined. Singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker may let her songs sit and seethe for long stretches, but those slow builds only maximize the catharsis of the big, loud, high-volume bursts of force that follow.

Onstage at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — Lenker brought a mix of new material and songs from last year's terrific Masterpiece. Throughout the set, Big Thief's sound billowed out in grand waves, matching the large stage and open-air setting, and by the end of "Masterpiece" (the band's signature song so far), Lenker was on her back, lost in the intensity of the moment. It felt like just the beginning for a band with a big, bright future.

Credits
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Colin Marshall; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Mito Habe-Evans, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Kelly West; Editor: Annabel Edwards; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

For Big Thief, fragility and power come inextricably intertwined. Singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker may let her songs sit and seethe for long stretches, but those slow builds only maximize the catharsis of the big, loud, high-volume bursts of force that follow.

Onstage at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — Lenker brought a mix of new material and songs from last year's terrific Masterpiece. Throughout the set, Big Thief's sound billowed out in grand waves, matching the large stage and open-air setting, and by the end of "Masterpiece" (the band's signature song so far), Lenker was on her back, lost in the intensity of the moment. It felt like just the beginning for a band with a big, bright future.

Credits
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Colin Marshall; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Mito Habe-Evans, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Kelly West; Editor: Annabel Edwards; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

For Big Thief, fragility and power come inextricably intertwined. Singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker may let her songs sit and seethe for long stretches, but those slow builds only maximize the catharsis of the big, loud, high-volume bursts of force that follow.

Onstage at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — Lenker brought a mix of new material and songs from last year's terrific Masterpiece. Throughout the set, Big Thief's sound billowed out in grand waves, matching the large stage and open-air setting, and by the end of "Masterpiece" (the band's signature song so far), Lenker was on her back, lost in the intensity of the moment. It felt like just the beginning for a band with a big, bright future.

Credits
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Colin Marshall; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Mito Habe-Evans, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Kelly West; Editor: Annabel Edwards; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

British singer Lookman Adekunle Salami performs "Day To Day (For 6 Days A Week)" at SXSW 2017.

By Lars Gotrich

L.A. Salami sings and fingerpicks his acoustic guitar like an old truck winding through windswept blue highways. The British artist's debut album Dancing With Bad Grammar was one of Bob Boilen's top 10 albums of last year, saying it was a "hidden gem in 2016."

Standing on the smoking balcony of a hotel overlooking Austin's downtown skyline, L.A. Salami plays "Day To Day (For 6 Days A Week)" for a small crowd just before midnight. It's a fidgety folk song that works through boredom on public transportation and gruesome deaths on the news, sometimes wrapped up in a love interest that doesn't seem to notice. "Six days a week, can't find my bearings / But to be fair I might of cared / Might of cared if you were there." At the end of the night, a long exhale of the day.

Credits:

Producers: Bob Boilen, Mito Habe-Evans; Director/Videographer: Nickolai Hammar; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann;

If you've only heard Lizzo's hit "Good As Hell" — and if you haven't, listen now, I'll wait — you might think the Twin Cities singer is a funny and ingratiating but fairly straightforward purveyor of self-affirmation and charismatic confidence. But as her joyful and explosive live show unfolded, complete with the arrival of the ecstatic backup dancers she calls "The Big Girls," it became clear that Lizzo has something more powerful going on.

Presiding over what she called "an all-female crew," Lizzo opened her set at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — with "Worship," a playful-but-potent demand to be treated right. ("Patiently, quietly, faithfully / Worship me.") But Lizzo also threw a telling cover into her Stubb's set list: a version of "Drone Bomb Me" by the singer ANOHNI, whom Lizzo described as "my hero" during Wednesday's show.

For a singer whose songs are so focused on celebration — and whose message of comfort with one's own identity and appearance is so crucial to her music — the inclusion of such a dark song seemed striking at first. "Drone Bomb Me," like much of ANOHNI's recent material, processes feelings of alienation through violent, masochistic imagery. As sung by Lizzo, placed among the cheerful likes of "Good As Hell" and "Coconut Oil," the song sent a different message: Lizzo's music, like ANOHNI's, is about loudly, provocatively and fearlessly making space for oneself in the world. As fun as Lizzo's music is, it feels like a revolution, too.
Credits:
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Director: Mito Habe-Evans; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Colin Marshall, Kelly West; Editor: Morgan Noelle Smith; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

If you've only heard Lizzo's hit "Good As Hell" — and if you haven't, listen now, I'll wait — you might think the Twin Cities singer is a funny and ingratiating but fairly straightforward purveyor of self-affirmation and charismatic confidence. But as her joyful and explosive live show unfolded, complete with the arrival of the ecstatic backup dancers she calls "The Big Girls," it became clear that Lizzo has something more powerful going on.

Presiding over what she called "an all-female crew," Lizzo opened her set at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — with "Worship," a playful-but-potent demand to be treated right. ("Patiently, quietly, faithfully / Worship me.") But Lizzo also threw a telling cover into her Stubb's set list: a version of "Drone Bomb Me" by the singer ANOHNI, whom Lizzo described as "my hero" during Wednesday's show.

For a singer whose songs are so focused on celebration — and whose message of comfort with one's own identity and appearance is so crucial to her music — the inclusion of such a dark song seemed striking at first. "Drone Bomb Me," like much of ANOHNI's recent material, processes feelings of alienation through violent, masochistic imagery. As sung by Lizzo, placed among the cheerful likes of "Good As Hell" and "Coconut Oil," the song sent a different message: Lizzo's music, like ANOHNI's, is about loudly, provocatively and fearlessly making space for oneself in the world. As fun as Lizzo's music is, it feels like a revolution, too.

Credits:
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Director: Mito Habe-Evans; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Colin Marshall, Kelly West; Editor: Morgan Noelle Smith; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

For Big Thief, fragility and power come inextricably intertwined. Singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker may let her songs sit and seethe for long stretches, but those slow builds only maximize the catharsis of the big, loud, high-volume bursts of force that follow.

Onstage at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — Lenker brought a mix of new material and songs from last year's terrific Masterpiece. Throughout the set, Big Thief's sound billowed out in grand waves, matching the large stage and open-air setting, and by the end of "Masterpiece" (the band's signature song so far), Lenker was on her back, lost in the intensity of the moment. It felt like just the beginning for a band with a big, bright future.

Credits
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Colin Marshall; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Mito Habe-Evans, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Kelly West; Editor: Annabel Edwards; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

For Big Thief, fragility and power come inextricably intertwined. Singer and guitarist Adrianne Lenker may let her songs sit and seethe for long stretches, but those slow builds only maximize the catharsis of the big, loud, high-volume bursts of force that follow.

Onstage at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — Lenker brought a mix of new material and songs from last year's terrific Masterpiece. Throughout the set, Big Thief's sound billowed out in grand waves, matching the large stage and open-air setting, and by the end of "Masterpiece" (the band's signature song so far), Lenker was on her back, lost in the intensity of the moment. It felt like just the beginning for a band with a big, bright future.

Credits
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Colin Marshall; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Mito Habe-Evans, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Kelly West; Editor: Annabel Edwards; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

"I'm ready for the world," Alynda Lee Segarra sings in the chorus of the rousing "Hungry Ghost" — and her band's set told that simple truth again and again. In the past seven or eight years, Hurray For The Riff Raff has blossomed slowly but fully, transforming its sound from intense-but-delicate one-woman bedroom recordings to the rip-roaring full-band jams that dominated the group's set at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas, recorded live for NPR Music Wednesday night.

Segarra commanded rapt attention throughout a string of powerful songs from Hurray For The Riff Raff's new album The Navigator, which examines her Puerto Rican heritage and a search for what she calls "my lost humanity." Wearing a homemade T-shirt that read "No Human Is Illegal," Segarra roared through songs that seethed with coiled intensity — even the slow-burning ballad "Fourteen Floors," for which Segarra took over on keyboards, was performed with to-the-skies power. So, yeah: Ready for the world.

Credits:
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Director: Colin Marshall; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Mito Habe-Evans, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Kelly West; Editor: Morgan Noelle Smith; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ

If you've only heard Lizzo's hit "Good As Hell" — and if you haven't, listen now, I'll wait — you might think the Twin Cities singer is a funny and ingratiating but fairly straightforward purveyor of self-affirmation and charismatic confidence. But as her joyful and explosive live show unfolded, complete with the arrival of the ecstatic backup dancers she calls "The Big Girls," it became clear that Lizzo has something more powerful going on.

Presiding over what she called "an all-female crew," Lizzo opened her set at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas — recorded live Wednesday as part of NPR Music's SXSW showcase — with "Worship," a playful-but-potent demand to be treated right. ("Patiently, quietly, faithfully / Worship me.") But Lizzo also threw a telling cover into her Stubb's set list: a version of "Drone Bomb Me" by the singer ANOHNI, whom Lizzo described as "my hero" during Wednesday's show.

For a singer whose songs are so focused on celebration — and whose message of comfort with one's own identity and appearance is so crucial to her music — the inclusion of such a dark song seemed striking at first. "Drone Bomb Me," like much of ANOHNI's recent material, processes feelings of alienation through violent, masochistic imagery. As sung by Lizzo, placed among the cheerful likes of "Good As Hell" and "Coconut Oil," the song sent a different message: Lizzo's music, like ANOHNI's, is about loudly, provocatively and fearlessly making space for oneself in the world. As fun as Lizzo's music is, it feels like a revolution, too.

Credits
Producers: Robin Hilton, Mito Habe-Evans; Technical Director: Josh Rogosin; Audio Engineer: Timothy Powell/Metro Mobile; Director: Mito Habe-Evans; Concert Videographers: Lizzie Chen, Nickolai Hammar, Katie Hayes Luke, Colin Marshall, Kelly West; Editor: Morgan Noelle Smith; Supervising Editor: Niki Walker; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann; Special Thanks: SXSW, Stubb's BBQ