For greater than twenty years, Rhiannon Giddens has been on a mission to shift how America views the banjo. With deep roots in North Carolina and a profession that fuses music, historical past and schooling, the GRAMMY and Pulitzer Prize-winning artist has lengthy labored to reclaim the banjo’s origins as a diasporic African instrument, difficult the erasure of Black voices in old-time and nation music.
Now, she’s constructing on that legacy with a brand new endeavor: Biscuits and Banjos, a cultural competition in Durham that explores the intersections of music, meals, and group by way of a distinctly Black Southern lens.
As mainstream platforms start to grapple with nation music’s racial and cultural historical past, the Greensboro, NC native stays steadfast in her method—quietly doing the work. Her profession has bridged the hole between educational analysis and inventive apply, from her foundational work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops to her solo tasks that usually pay homage to elders like Joe Thompson and Etta Baker. At Biscuits and Banjos, that lineage continues.
The competition is an element celebration, half corrective—a spot the place Black artists, culinary historians and musicians can join with one another and with audiences, free from industrial constraints. It’s additionally a continuation of the momentum sparked by Dreamville Fest, additional amplifying the rising stay leisure sector in North Carolina.
The competition arrives at a well timed second for Giddens, who simply launched a brand new album titled What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow?, a meditative venture recorded on the houses of Thompson and Baker. Anchored by conventional fiddle and banjo preparations, the venture is a love letter to North Carolina and a reminder that place, reminiscence and historical past form sound in profound methods. “These folks lived a life on this land,” Giddens advised EBONY. “And all of that goes into the music.”
Her work comes on the heels of one other high-profile second: a banjo characteristic on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter’s “Texas Maintain ‘Em”, which adopted Giddens’ Billboard interview the place she expressed blended emotions concerning the company equipment behind the venture. “I really feel like I needed to make a compromise to ensure that a higher good,” the banjo participant mentioned in her Billboard interview.
Whereas Giddens confirmed her full help for Beyoncé’s proper to have interaction with the style to EBONY, she additionally emphasised that visibility is just a part of the equation. “This stuff are blips,” she mentioned. “If there’s nothing arrange earlier than and after, they only stay blips.” With Biscuits and Banjos, Giddens is making an attempt to construct infrastructure—one thing rooted, sustainable, and pushed by group.
In her chat with EBONY Giddens opens up concerning the ethos behind Biscuits and Banjos, her early music influences, and the non secular weight of returning to ancestral areas to document her newest album.
EBONY: There’s this rising consciousness that nation music has area for everybody, particularly for Black artists who haven’t all the time felt welcomed. What’s your perspective on that shift?
Rhiannon Giddens: That’s been the entire level of my profession. I’ve been doing the work, together with so many others, to reclaim this area in a holistic method. That’s a part of why Biscuits and Banjos additionally consists of meals [vendors]. It’s all half of a bigger cultural story. Artists like Taj Mahal have been speaking concerning the banjo for many years. And even earlier than him, elders had been preserving this music by way of a interval when it was being erased from public reminiscence.
There was this quick transition the place folks forgot that Black people performed this music. I don’t blame anybody; I realized the place the banjo got here from in my twenties. It is a systemic challenge, and alter takes time. However I’m actually inspired by what appears like a important mass now.
With that sort of momentum comes visibility—and generally commercialization. That may water down the which means behind the music. As somebody rooted within the music, what do you need to see preserved is the style grows?
The historical past. Individuals say nation music is for everybody—and it’s—however we additionally want to know that Black individuals are a part of the DNA of nation music. There’s a restoration occurring, a correction to the narrative, and that should keep entrance and middle. The concept that anyone group owns a style, or ties it to nationalism or racial purity, stems from historic ignorance.
Nation music has all the time been industrial. The second music turned recorded, it turned a product fairly than simply an expertise. We act like Spotify modified all the pieces, however the document participant did that first. As soon as the music is faraway from the particular person, you’ll be able to change its which means.
I play old-time music, the type that received absorbed into what we now name nation. I realized from Joe Thompson, a standard fiddler. This music comes from a deep cultural alternate—Black, white, brown, poor, working-class communities. We’re simply restoring our half in it. In the end, it’s about class as a lot as race. Race was used to implement class.
I really like that you simply introduced up the meals connection. There’s been this historic sample the place something Black folks use to construct themselves up will get reframed into one thing shameful. Watermelon, fried hen—these had been survival instruments. So when somebody’s simply beginning to reconnect with these histories, just like the banjo, the place ought to they start?
Nice query. I’ve wished to create a central useful resource for this for some time. I did a 10-part course on the banjo for Nice Programs the place I introduced in specialists I’ve realized from. That’s a strong start line. This isn’t a fast factor. You may’t simply study one track and say you perceive the custom. It’s a way of life.
Completely. And that ties to Biscuits and Banjos being “an area for exchanging concepts,” in accordance with the outline on the competition’s web site. What are you hoping folks depart with?
First, I would like folks to know they’re not alone. I would like somebody who’s been sitting with their banjo of their room to understand there’s a complete group. I additionally need artists throughout disciplines to attach. Through the pandemic, I used to be remoted in Eire and needed to discover ways to make biscuits myself. That sparked my journey into meals tradition. Watching Excessive on the Hog jogged my memory that so many people are considering the identical method—we have to recenter ourselves in these narratives.
Meals and music are unimaginable methods to hint cultural histories. Everybody eats. Everybody loves music. So possibly somebody involves the competition, listens to Toni Tipton-Martin converse, and has a thought that modifications how they perceive artwork or tradition. That’s the aim. This competition isn’t about revenue. It’s about group. I would like folks doing this work to depart with a renewed sense of power.
You’ve additionally made it clear the competition is for the local people. Why was affordability and accessibility so necessary?
That was all the pieces to me. From the start, I mentioned this competition has to learn Durham. It may possibly’t be extractive. I would like the town to stroll away feeling like this gave them one thing.
What would you like folks to learn about North Carolina as a music vacation spot?
North Carolina’s distinctive. Traditionally, it sat between Virginia and South Carolina—two wealthier states with extra plantations. North Carolina was poorer, extra rural, extra blended. That blend gave beginning to loads of nice music—from Nina Simone and Thelonious Monk to Eric Church.
There’s additionally an enormous indie scene. And I feel folks overlook that grassroots music scenes want help. If we don’t put money into stay music now, in 20 years we’ll simply have AI songs on Spotify. That’s the place we’re headed until we shift course.
The Carolina Chocolate Drops reunion is a giant second. What does that imply to you?
We fashioned with pure intent, and that’s guided my profession. Assembly Joe Thompson, after which Dom [Flemons] and Justin [Robinson], modified my life. We turned the folks we didn’t get to see rising up. Individuals inform me they picked up a banjo as a result of they noticed us. That’s all the pieces. Now we every have our personal work, however this reunion is a method of claiming “thanks” to ourselves, to one another, to the followers. We did a factor. And now we’re coming collectively to have fun that.
And also you’re doing it whereas additionally releasing a brand new album, What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow?. What was that like?
It was intense. I noticed if one thing occurred to me, loads of this music would disappear. So, I wished to doc it. Justin and I went again to Joe Thompson and Etta Baker’s houses. We recorded outside, surrounded by the sounds of North Carolina—birds, bugs, wind. It was about reconnecting the music to position. Not simply the notes, however the setting, the folks, the tales. It was extremely emotional.
At Etta’s home, her hat was nonetheless hanging up. The power was so current. At Joe’s place, we had a diffusion of meals and performed by the forest. Even the plantation the place we recorded some tunes carried an power. We didn’t document in the home—simply on the porch, by the river. There was a line we didn’t need to cross. The land remembers.
You talked in Billboard about Cowboy Carter. Out of your perspective, why do you suppose that album was the one to lastly break by way of and win Album of the Yr?
Look, I’ve mentioned for years—if anyone can get Black folks to care concerning the banjo, it’s Beyoncé. I’m on document saying that. She had the publicity, the facility, the buy-in from the Black group. She’s sort of the one one who may actually do it this manner. So, I’ll battle to the loss of life for Beyoncé’s proper to place out no matter music she desires—nation or in any other case. I’ll write no matter Guardian op-ed to defend any Black particular person’s proper to have interaction with the style in a method that’s respectful and considerate. I’ll battle to the loss of life for that. As for the GRAMMYs.
… I’m most likely the mistaken particular person to ask. The entire thing is difficult for me.
I feel the thought of trophies for artwork is difficult for me—even whereas I perceive the GRAMMYs does loads of nice work. I used to be there representing a label run by a lady, with a track written by a Black lady a few lynching. I used to be additionally there to place a imaginative and prescient to the banjo, to say: that is the banjo, that is the historical past. I exploit each likelihood I get to coach and share the details. That’s how I see the GRAMMYs. As for the politics—I don’t actually have interaction with that.
So—if there’s a chance on the Cowboy Carter tour the place collaborators be part of Beyoncé onstage, is that one thing you’d take part in?
That world’s so completely different from mine, however I by no means say no. If it’s for the correct causes, I’m there. At all times for the mission.
And that’s precisely what you mentioned at the beginning of this dialog. So, tying it again to Biscuits and Banjos—if somebody’s on the fence about coming, what’s the one factor you’d inform them?
Simply come be pleased with us. You may present up, examine issues out, and depart if it’s not for you. But when one thing attracts you in, keep. Comply with the artists—not as a result of they’re celebrities, however due to what they do. That’s what Biscuits and Banjos is right here for.
This yr marks the twentieth anniversary of the Black Banjo Gathering at App State, which he [Tony Thomas] began with CC Conway. Tony created a listserv for Black banjo gamers after getting flamed on the mainstream banjo discussion board for simply speaking about Black folks taking part in the banjo. That was 20 years in the past—it was a special time.
CC Conway additionally wrote African Banjo Echoes in Appalachia, a significant entry level for lots of people. That gathering is the place I met Dom and Justin. It’s not the start of all the pieces, but it surely was a key second. This competition is, partially, an homage to that. I simply wished to call Tony Thomas and CC Conway as a result of with out them, we wouldn’t be having this dialog. It’s necessary to connect with the folks and work that got here earlier than us.