Bobby Carter

Background

About Bobby Carter

Bobby Carter is an award-winning creative leader, DJ, and cultural ambassador. He serves as host and series producer of NPR’s Tiny Desk, leading the team’s creative vision, direction, and curation across all divisions and platforms. His work has ushered in the media organization’s youngest and most diverse audience, averaging 40 million views per month. This work also includes representing Tiny Desk and Tiny Desk-related programming on-air, podcasts, and social media. Since joining the team in 2014, Bobby’s creative strategy has been at the intersection of music, storytelling, technology, and engagement, forging partnerships with HBO, Amazon, and Complexcon. Bobby has produced the most viewed Tiny Desk concerts, accumulating more than 500 million views including viral moments from Usher, Juvenile, Mac Miller, Anderson.Paak, Sesame Street, Post Malone, and Justin Timberlake. He turned a modest celebration of Black History Month into a cross-cultural event combining music, film, photojournalism, and commentary. Carter leveraged this blueprint to pull new teams together to bring a multi-dimensional, multi-continent, multi-platform celebration of Black Music Month, LatinX Heritage Month, Asian American/Pacific Islander Month, and Indigenous People Month. Before his work with the Tiny Desk, The St. Louis native served as an engineer on the NPR’s Ops team, he helped to lead and build the digital infrastructure while maintaining daily operations on npr.org, driving live and on-demand programming for countless historical events including five Presidential elections, The Iraq war, and sadly, 9/11. When NPR Music launched in 2007, he made his way over to the team, leading live remotes from the 9:30 Club, La Poison Rouge, The Americana Awards, SXSW, Newport Folk and Jazz Festivals, and more. As DJ Cuzzin B, he’s served as Music Supervisor for Nike Brand Creative’s “Gallery Nights,” a platform created to amplify BIPOC voices featuring diverse artists, athletes, innovators, and creators telling their stories, explaining their techniques, processes, and perspectives. His work with Nike Brand Creative has expanded to Nike Basketball, Nike Swim, and Jordan Brand where he led music supervision for their Black History Month campaigns. Bobby’s distinguished career started as a DJ for WJSU in Jackson, Mississippi. Carter earned a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Production at Jackson State University with a minor in Speech. He’s a veteran and globally respected DJ, writer, voiceover actor, public speaker, creative, and judge for the Tiny Desk Contest.