Just meeting NPR Tiny Desk winner The Philharmonik? Sacramento musician shares his origin story

Sacramento’s own Christian Gates — better known as The Philharmonik — has won this year’s NPR Tiny Desk competition.

The producer, singer, rapper and multi-instrumentalist entered his song called “What’s It All Mean” and subsequent music video, shot in a real estate office right here in Sacramento. 

In the announcement from NPR on Wednesday, Tiny Desk series host and contest judge Bobby Carter said this year’s competition has been the most competitive thus far, but that Philharmonik’s song floored the judges. 

This year was also the first time the audience has gotten a chance to vote for their favorites. Forty-five musical acts were chosen from 7,000 entries for this honor.

Gates and the rest of his band will be featured on NPR Music's Tiny Desk Concert series at NPR headquarters in Washington and will go on a 10-city tour this summer.

"The planning for this was insane," Gates wrote in the comments of the music video on YouTube. "The Sacramento community literally lifted me up to help me see this vision through when I had not a single penny to my name ... There was a magic energy filling the space that I can't explain, but I had a plan ... This is a result of amazing teamwork and minds coming together."

Before the win was announced, Gates spoke with CapRadio’s Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez about entering the contest and what’s next.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

If people are just meeting you right now, where did the Philharmonik come from? What's the origin story?

When I was 23 years old, I was inspired by my grandfather's passing to really pursue music, becoming my own artist, becoming my own producer, even though I had a very vast background of music. I wanted to expand on that through self-expression. And so I decided to say I'm not going to do the regular nine-to-five jobs anymore. I'm really gonna pursue this.

When did you start becoming a fan of Tiny Desk? What does it mean to you?

I became a fan of Tiny Desk when I first heard about it, probably back in 2015 when Fantastic Negrito won it. And over the years, I got to learn more and more about the contest and I saw all artists across America enter this contest in a way [where] there wasn't really a roadblock. All you had to do is bring yourself and bring your best and for me, I felt like eventually I could do that. So my first submission was in 2018. For six years, I felt like I didn't have anything to submit and then this year I was like, I have an idea.

Let's go back to the first time. What happened during that process? How do you reflect on the first time you submitted a video to Tiny Desk?

I was doing a lot of things in the dark, experimenting. I think I was watching a lot of the videos … behind the videos there really wasn't big production value behind it. It was just artists showing up as themselves in the rawest form possible. And so I did that with what I felt was representative of the message that I wanted to put out to the world. I brought my friend who was a poet and we focused on mental health awareness for that one. We did it at Sol Collective. We put a lot of posters around the room, set the piano up and started to record. I really wasn't aiming for any wins back then. I just wanted to put my foot in the door and create, you know, and experiment and and enjoy it.

The song that you submitted is “What's It All Mean?” What's the message behind the song?

The message behind the song is sometimes in life, nothing makes sense. And it can become redundant. It could become meaningless at times, and you know, I think it's okay for these things to be that way, especially if you remove how you think life is supposed to be. Life will always bring us through its ups and downs and ebbs and flows that change our perspective on what life means to us. I feel like I was going through an existential crisis and didn't understand anything, and as I get older I get more comfortable with myself. 

I love the music video. How did you come up with that concept?

When I was releasing my most recent album Kironic, I wanted to make this album roll out as big as possible. I thought what I was lacking was a brand and a story that took my talent to a level of perception that really just had a universal timeless message.

I was making a lot of great music and good music, but it was more of a showcase of my talent instead of [being] intentional. So my friend Ellen and I, and Devon Whitaker who is the director in this video, we sat down together and we planned it out, we brainstormed a lot of ideas.

For some reason this profoundly simple idea was something I looked over for years and when I finally got the point I said this is what we're going to run with, and every video on my album is going to be around this guy in a suit, and everything I do is work. We made a music video which was before [we shot the Tiny Desk submission video], I was already in the office, I was already in the suit, and I felt like I wanted to do something specifically for this contest that really encapsulated the concept.

When watching the music video I saw your mug said “All City Writers” — the Sacramento arts community is tight-knit. And when I was reading your description of what it took to make this happen, that people showed up, I really saw that in your music video.

Yeah, and that for me was the most beautiful and humbling moment. I told everybody before, I am like, “I have not a single dollar to my name, but I have this huge vision that can make it really far if we all commit to it. I just need you guys to trust me.” And there wasn't a single person within a 50-mile radius that was hesitant. They were like, “Let's go, let's do it, let's get ready to go, let's make this happen.” 

It was the most important aspect of things because this was a concept that was much larger than life and much larger than one person being able to fulfill it. And so I'm eternally grateful for everybody in Sacramento that came together to make this happen.