How ‘losing’ the Tiny Desk Contest launched Yasmin Williams’ music career

Hey y’all, I’m Yasmin Williams, a guitarist from Northern Virginia and a two-time Contest “loser.” It’s funny to be writing this now, on the heels of what is now my second official Tiny Desk concert. So much has happened for me in just this past week: I was featured in The Washington Post on the cover of the weekend section; I performed on Stephen Colbert’s web series for The Late Night Show; and I’m currently on a headline tour around the East Coast! It’s now dawning on me how all these events are serendipitously connected to my two Tiny Desk Contest entries.

In 2018, when I entered the Contest for the first time, I never really thought about winning. I knew that there were literally thousands of other folks submitting their best material and I just wanted to be among them. Besides, I was even more excited to be releasing my debut album, Unwind, later that spring, even if I didn’t expect anyone to listen to it outside of friends, family and a few early supporters I had on my musician Facebook page.

Though I didn’t end up winning the Contest, my entry was well-received enough that I was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition which was thrilling and really surprising. I had a lovely interview with host Scott Simon, and played a couple of original songs on the air.

Afterward, Scott told me about something he called the “NPR bump,” where a relatively unknown artist gets a barrage of new listeners after being featured on an NPR program. I thought this wouldn’t apply to me. I was extremely incorrect in this assumption! After my interview with Scott, my album Unwind, went from, literally, No. 255,801 on Amazon’s paid albums chart to No. 6, with a percentage bump of 3,603,685%. On iTunes, it went from anonymity to No. 1 on multiple charts. It even landed on the Billboard Heatseekers chart at No. 15.

Most importantly, the royalty money I received from the “NPR bump” allowed me to buy my first custom guitar, which is still my main instrument. I was also featured on another great NPR video series called Night Owl later that same year, which helped get my music in front of even more folks. None of this would have happened had I not entered into the Contest that year.

I entered again in 2020 and, again, did not win. However, I was one of five artists featured on the Top Shelf series and got to chat with Brittany Howard on Zoom about how much she liked my entry. To me, that was basically as good as winning the Contest! Funnily enough, late last year, I opened for Brittany Howard and Michael Kiwanuka on an incredible month-long tour. I reminded her about the Top Shelf call and she said that she had been following me since then and that’s how I got the tour slot. It’s amazing how things come full circle when you least expect it!

My Contest experiences have been absolutely life-changing. Even though I’m technically a two-time loser, I don’t feel like I lost at all. So, if you get nothing else from reading this: Please understand that you only really lose if you don’t try. Keep pushing, y’all! Stay true to yourself, don’t lose your integrity and know that, even when something feels like a loss, it can reveal itself to be the thing that changes your life for the better.