‘Dancing Circles’ appeared on Sampha’s Lahai album from last year, and was written by Sampha and el Guincho. Originally darker and more mellow, the song was given a funky rearrangement for his Tiny Desk set. The original’s instrumentation was heavily piano-led and featured no drums until after three minutes in.

The basslines provided by Rosetta, whose bass tutor profile first lists funk among the styles she plays, add a funkiness that was never there in the studio version. Rosetta sprinkles in heavier notes, pulling the string away from the fretboard, that resemble the slaps and pops of Larry Graham.

Drummer Blake Casco’s sharp touches on the drums add plenty of groove too. His dancing cymbals and quick, subtle fills add a bouncy quality to the chorus which seemed almost melancholy on record. Casco involuntarily smirks in the second chorus as he and the band reply to Sampha’s “Dancing” with “Uh-huh, uh-huh, oh-oh-woah-oh”. It’s the kind of funky call-and-response that should make you smile. The band are clearly loving it: Rosetta and Sampha share a grin and a boogie towards the end of that chorus.

The piano from Elsa Hackett and Ruthven smoothly aids transitions between sections, and adds a mysticality to the outro. Their vocal harmonies and echoing of Sampha’s lines are more optimistic and energetic than the original’s.

The backing vocals as a whole are given greater weight than the studio version, which allows the interesting variations on the Sampha’s melodies to shine. While repetitions of “Blackness” and “Northside” had a slightly haunting air on the original, at Tiny Desk they seem more playful, even sassy.

Repetitions of words like “Blackness” and “Roadside” are reminiscent of those on Kendrick Lamar’s ‘King Kunta’ (“What’s the yams?”, “Oh no”), which in turn was inspired by James Brown’s ‘The Payback’ (and interpolates that track). Sampha worked on Lamar's Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers album.

The second verse, anticipated by a sliding bass note covering most of Rosetta’s fretboard, is transformed from the studio version. The original’s lines like “I wanna feel your love like Summer” seemed more like faraway wishes, but here they seem confident. There’s a hint of the bravado found in rap. In answering a question from Kwake Bass, Sampha has said, “I’ve definitely become more comfortable experimenting with the cadence and rhythms associated with rap.”