Tokischa Sings at Tiny Desk Concert

Tokischa is a dembow singer who’s known for playing with genres and her bold lyricism that focuses on queerness, sexuality and sex

Tokischa was also the first Dominican to participate in Tiny Desk, doing it in a Bossa Nova style and featuring J Balvin. She reworked her dembow tracks using the other Caribbean and Latin American genres. Her songs tend to include profanity, detailed descriptions of sex, and lots, lots, of queerness. But, what’s more interesting about her singing is how she switches up different Caribbean genres.

These genre experiments allow Tokischa to explore other Caribbean genres without diverting away from her anti-oppressive message. 

Her song Estilazo was revamped for the concert, with its distinctive house slowed down and a tumbao piano riff backing it up in the neighborhood of “Chan Chan.” Another song performed at the Tiny Desk Concert was Kilos De Amor, an unreleased feature.

“Hello, this is the band. I’m Tokischa. I am a Dominican artist, and that’s it.” This was her invitation to keep going with the single Hola with Eladio Carrión. Other songs she played included Delinquent, Traficando, and We are the Same.

What was surprising was not the reactions to her lyrical material but rather her preparation and quality of the performance.

For her performance, she wore an olive green dress with a wide white belt, two front pigtails, and the rest of her hair in loose curls. Social media users attacked Tokischa by claiming that she had looked bad from the moment it was recorded. 

Tokischa justified her performance by saying, “I already knew that Tiny had been bad for me since I recorded it, without rehearsing, without warming up my voice, in the hustle and bustle, sick, in the middle of a tour.” She further stated she had asked for a different time to give the public a quality performance, but it wasn’t feasible for Tiny. 

Whether Tokischa was realistically prepared for the concert or not, she’s paved the way for other Dominican singers to make it to Tiny Desk once they reach international appeal.

Tokischa’s recent antics before Tiny Desk included releasing a “Hung Up” remix with Madonna, and “Hung up with Tokischa”, including a music video. Following these, there were rumors that the young Dominican singer was also dating Madonna, with speculation more rampant once Madonna came out as gay.