Rhiannon Giddens on New Album, Biscuits & Banjos, Beyoncé, Kennedy Center

Rhiannon Giddens pauses for just a few moments as her image comes up on the Zoom screen. “Sorry, I was just turning my Facebook off,” she explains, looking up from her keyboard. “I wrote a post…” She elaborates on how “a post” should be punctuated, in this instance. “Capital A, capital P! So there’s been lots of chatter on it.” It turns out she had just put something up on her socials to lay out her reasons for canceling a concert at the Kennedy Center, which, given how the regime change at that institution has been a political flashpoint, made some news. And we’ll get to that. (Scroll down if you can’t wait.)

But first, the immediate matters at hand, like “What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow,” the wonderful new album of old-time music she’s made with Justin Robinson, her former partner in the seminal Black roots band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops. There’s her inaugural Biscuits & Banjos Festival, being held this coming weekend in her native North Carolina, which will feature a full Chocolate Drops reunion for the first time in 12 years; it’ll be livestreamed across the country via Veeps. And there’s a national summer tour, in the midst of which she’s overseeing an all-star Hollywood Bowl show in June that promises to be the roots-music event of the year, at least by the standards of the west coast, and maybe all points between here and Durham as well.

Her extracurricular work tends to be more widely heard than her own albums, whether it’s her banjo playing on Beyoncé‘s “Texas Hold ‘Em” single or her instrumental contributions to the “Sinners” soundtrack. But anyone who doesn’t follow those whiffs of what she does all the way to the source is missing out on a lot on brilliance — whether it’s her virtuosity as a player, her skills as a genre-defying composer (her opera, “Omar,” won a Pulitzer), or her oratorical prowess as a historian and populist educator about how most early American music was built on a framework of Black instruments and sounds. Here is an edited version of our conversation with Giddens.

No two albums in a row are the same for you. But your fans probably know that if you do an album like [2023’s Grammy-nominated] “You’re the One,” which is more song-based and contemporary, you might follow it up with something really traditional, like this one. Is that an especially satisfying or even necessary way to live your artistic life, where each project is a little different?

There’s no formula, really. I just know that in my artistic life, I’m always very interested in doing something I haven’t done. And so with “You’re the One,” I hadn’t done an album of all-original material. For this record, I really felt the need to go back to my roots in a way, and just go back to that world that’s always with me — the world of old-time music.

I don’t think people who are not into old-time music or that kind of niche music know that it is not bluegrass. I started in bluegrass, but this is not bluegrass. If you don’t know this world — the world of contra dancing, the world of back porch music — I think it’s worth knowing. I’m on Nonesuch; they’re a very supportive label. [And I can’t pass up] the opportunity to put a record out that is kind of very anti- to most modern releases. It is literally banjo and fiddle music, recorded outside, and that’s it. What you see is what you get! So that was a very attractive thing to me, and really a 180-degree change from “You’re the One.” I don’t usually go, “OK, I want to do the exact opposite now,” but this time, that is kind of what I did.

But it’s not that I set out to do the exact opposite and then looked for a project like this. Justin (Robinson) came to me. He hadn’t been doing music for years, and then I saw him out playing again, and I was like, “Oh, come and let’s play these tunes we haven’t played in a while.” I was just struck with how beautiful the thing that we do is, just fiddle/banjo. We were trained by a string-band musician connected to deep history [the late Joe Thompson, the legendary North Carolina Piedmont musician who was their mentor]. It was the apprentice model, learning this style, which we don’t play with anybody else. And I just realized, if one of us gets hit by a bus tomorrow, this is gone. Obviously, Joe Thompson taught a lot of people, but the fact that our fiddle-and-banjo interlocking does what it does is because we sat with Joe. It’s one thing of many that is worth preserving. And I thought, we need to capture it in an old-time way. We wanted it to sound like you wandered up onto our porch and sat down and we just played some tunes.

When was the last time you did work with Justin?

It wasn’t like we hadn’t played together in 15 years. I’ve invited him to some gigs, and that’s why I even would want to do it, because every time we played together, I was like, ugh, this is so good. I don’t even have to think; my body’s just doing it. We played so much together. We were doing hundreds of gigs a year as the Chocolate Drops, and played with Joe so many hours that it really was just like getting back on a bike and feeling the wind in your hair. I was like: We should do this and then we should put a band together and tour it, like a mixed old-time band. I got him to say yes. He hasn’t been on tour in over a decade. He’s a homebody. So, this is special. This is not gonna happen again, probably.

The two of you will be joined by Dom Flemons for a Carolina Chocolate Drops reunion show at your Banjos and Biscuits Festival on April 26. That reunion is probably a one-time thing, right?

Yeah, it’s very exciting. I actually haven’t played with Dom, I think, since the last Chocolate Drops gig he was on (in December 2013). I’ve invited him to be a part of projects in the past, because I try to highlight him when I can, because he’s doing really great work. So, yeah, it’ll be super fun to get the gang back together again. And for a large number of people who’ve been a part of the Chocolate Drops family over the years, it just seemed like the time to come together. We’ll begin with that trio and then we will expand and be welcoming to everyone, because I just think that’s a party. It’s not like, “Here’s the Carolina Chocolate Drops do their hits as a trio.” We’ll obviously do some fan favorites, but it’s really: Let’s get together. Let’s have a great time. We need it right now. Things are rough out there for a lot of people, so let’s celebrate.

Also, it’s a moment to celebrate the band for what it was and what it has been to people. It plays a part in a lot of younger musicians’ origin stories, which is an honor, really, to be in the lineage. Now we see people beyond us, which is incredible. When the three of us started the whole thing, all we wanted was to know that we would be a link in the chain instead of the end.

Going back to the new record, you had a great quote where you used the metaphor of “going down a dirt road while there’s a stampede going the other way.” Is that how you feel with a lot of stuff you do?

Absolutely. I will say that the AI phenomenon was part of the thinking about how to record these tunes — I want to do as opposite as possible! You can’t AI these recordings, you know what I mean? They’ve got locusts on them. They’ve got random kids next door. They’ve got bird song. All the mics are live; there’s no separation, no way to isolate anything, no way to pitch-correct. … Is it the best old-time record that has ever been released? No. But it’ll definitely get out there and hopefully raise up the whole idea of what old-time music is.

Not many albums are recorded outdoors, of course. Is it a challenge to mic that up and have it sound as good as if you’d done it in a studio?

You’d have to ask Joe [her co-producer, Joseph “Joebass” DeJarnette], who did it, but I picked the best in the business for that reason. He’s done on-location recording of this music for a long time… There’s a certain way that instruments sound outside, particularly banjos. They just come alive in a different way than when they’re in four walls and and a roof. I love playing outside because it’s so natural. You don’t have to think about anything but just playing. It feels like the purest form of recording because you don’t have to hear the reverb, you don’t have to hear anything. You’re just literally hearing the thing that you’re playing, and that’s it. I love it. I want to do it some more.

You made the recording during a locust brood…

It is a special moment and a special sound. It’s a sound that I think used to be more part of the fabric of our bodies, because we used to be outside way more than we are now. We spend so much time indoors. And also, of course, the collapse of the insect populations means that we don’t hear overall insect sounds as much, or bird sounds, which is just depressing to say. And those sounds can only be in one place, one area. It really does place it, in a way. Buildings are anonymous — no matter where the building is, you have no idea where that was recorded, whereas this kind of bird is only here at this time of the year, and then there’s the locusts and this and that. We really talked a lot about how much (ambient) sound is gonna be at the beginning and the ends, and how to fade and how to create this opportunity, this experience, of just putting it on and just kind of letting it go. You’re actually moving from one part of North Carolina to the other by the sounds of the wildlife.

But this wasn’t something you put on your calendar five years ago or anything?

No, no. It was really just a good confluence of things, like, “Oh, shit. There’s locusts. They’re really loud. Oh, this is awesome.” They would be really loud for a while, and then they would quiet down, and then they would do this almost aeration of sound. But it wasn’t like, “Oh, great, it’s gonna be a locust storm that week.” It was good fortune. We just saw it as meant to be.

And then for the track “Marching Jaybird,” you went to the yard of one of your heroes, Etta Baker, and recorded it where she had recorded at home.

Yeah, both Justin and I remember very well hearing a recording of Etta playing where you hear this bird, and you hear it on our recordings in the same area. So when the thought of where to go turned into the idea of doing it somewhere in the western part of the state, it was immediately, “Let’s see if we can go to Etta’s place.” We didn’t know who owned the house, and that day turned really magical because her son was really gracious and spent the whole time with us there. And then after we recorded, he’d say, “Oh yeah, my mama played that tune.” We’d be like, “Yeah, we’re aware! That’s how we learned it.” Her house was remarkable. It is like she just wandered away one day and never came back. It hasn’t been touched since she died. It doesn’t have electricity. Her hat’s on the hook. Both Justin and I walked into that living room and we teared up immediately, because it was like, “This is grandma’s house.” I mean, a Southern Black woman’s house, there’s a certain thing around it, just the feel in the air, the carpet on the floor. It was a really magic day.

Let’s talk about the tour you’re got coming up. [Scroll down for the full list of dates.] You’re bound to be playing banjo, but you’ve also got Dirk Powell, who is this amazing banjo player…

Well, Dirk plays all the things; he plays fiddle, banjo, guitar, Cajun and Creole accordion. I put this band together thinking about the history of America, and the history of white and Black working-class cultural exchange. But also, this is my musical family from over the years, and also blood family. So there’s Dirk and then his daughter Amelia, who plays guitar and triangle and is the granddaughter of [Cajun fiddle hero] Dewey Balfa. So there’s also gonna be opportunities to play Cajun and Creole music within these songs. Because, especially with the Creole music, there’s a lot that I feel is relational to string band music from North Carolina. Then there’s my longtime bass player, Jason Sypher, who’s lived in North Carolina and New Orleans, and then my nephew, Justin Harrington, aka Demeanor, is also in the band. So there’s no drums, there’s no electric instruments, it’s a real string band, you know? And we’re gonna be able to kind of play anything, which is very exciting. It’s gonna be a lot of fun to just go out there and play the foundation of American music.

At the Hollywood Bowl show June 18, it’s quite an additional lineup for a one-time-only occasion, from Steve Martin to Allison Brown. What’s the idea behind that show?

It’s a very special night — as it should be for the Hollywood Bowl. It should be something that hasn’t happened anywhere else. They asked me to curate something, and, well, you know me and banjos. Steve and I have been adjacent quite a few times. Obviously I won his award [the 2016 Steve Martin Banjo Award]. We’ve been at the same festivals and we’ve had conversations, but we’ve never actually shared a show. So it’s really cool that it’s coming together in this way. He’s bringing Allison Brown and a couple of folks and we’re gonna collaborate a little bit. And it is an awesome opportunity to bring together Our Native Daughters again for the first time since Carnegie Hall. Because getting them gals together is not easy, you know? [That banjo-playing singer/songwriter collective includes Allison Russell, Amythyst Kiah and Leyla McCalla.] So I’m really happy it worked out. I’m really excited about that. And there’s been a lot of really positive work done in the banjo world, rehabilitating the image, and Steve’s had a really big part to play in that, and Our Native Daughters has, and me and Justin have our places in that. So it’s really cool to kind of bring all these things together.

And then my band, of course, will be there. And then, Ed [Helms] has been part of the Bluegrass Situation for a long time. He curated a show up in Newport and invited me to be a part of that, and I really enjoyed working with him. I just thought, he’s really into this music for the all the right reasons, you know? And he has got a great voice and he is a good player. I was like, well, if it’s the Hollywood Bowl, what a great opportunity to bring all these strands of people who really love the music. And we have bluegrass and we have old-time and we have everything in-between, and I think it’s just gonna be a stellar, stellar night. I’m super stoked.

You have your Biscuits and Banjos Festival you founded happening April 25-27 in Durham. Is there any aspect you’re most anticipating about that? It’s OK if you say it’s the biscuits.

I’m super excited about all of it. The biscuits? Yes. Ever since the pandemic, I’ve been obsessed with biscuits, and what’s the best way to make them? But what I’m excited about is bringing together so many people who’ve been doing so much positive, community-oriented work in the culture and in genres that aren’t traditionally valued by mainstream Black culture … although that is changing. It was just kind of like, if I could just bring together anybody I wanted to, who would it be?

And this is not obviously all the people that I would wanna work with, but there’s a certain mission that you could say underpins the festival that would probably get it erased by the current administration. But we’re just there for food and music and community. It’s not about making a lot of money. It doesn’t have shareholders. It’s really like, how can we bring people together and expose folks who maybe aren’t on these mailing lists to follow some of these artists? How can we create something that serves the fans and also brings new people to it? How do we create something that feeds back into Durham without being extractive?

So there’s tons of free events happening that are really the backbone of the festival. Yes, we have these ticketed concerts, so if you have a a bracelet, you can get into any of the venues and see the Chocolate Drops reunion, for example. But if you don’t, and you are from Durham or you just want to come get a hotel room and see what’s happening outside of those things, there’s so much going on, from panels to incredible performers,, you can be part of. The team has worked incredibly hard to make sure that if you’re not one of the few who got to snap up a ticket, you can still have a very full festival experience.

And then with the Chocolate Drops, we are gonna have a screen outside of the theater where the the reunion show is being held so people can put up their chair on the lawn and watch it and still be with people who are enjoying it. I’m super stoked about that kind of thing, because that really means the access is really high for this festival. I wanted the access to be as high as we could give. And I’m not interested in making a penny, really. The other thing underpinning the festival is care for our cultural leaders. It was important to me that the artists who are coming maybe they stay for an extra day and just enjoy, and we cover the room. I just want it to be a moment that can fuel the next three months for people, like, “OK, I can take this and I’m going back to my little corner of the universe and I’m gonna make it.”

OK, speaking of needing a respite from what’s going on in the country… You mentioned at the beginning of our conversation that you had a Facebook post this morning that people are responding to. That’s about something you were in the news for recently — canceling a performance at the Kennedy Center. What sort of reaction are you getting on your post this morning?

Mostly positive. Mostly people going, “Oh, thank God. Thanks for saying something.” It’s hard. I haven’t said much. It’s not really the way that I work my career. I don’t overtly dig into current politics. I’m more interested in looking at epochal shapes — what’s happened in the last hundred years, rather than what’s happened in the last year. That’s what interests me and that’s what I know, because I don’t know all of the governmental things that are going on. I don’t like talking about things that I don’t know. But I think at the moment there’s been enough to get a clue for what the current administration is interested in. And, for me, I just think it’s important to be clear where I stand.

And if you’re not clear by now, I don’t know what to say, if you’re a fan of mine. But there’s a couple people who are like, “Well, I don’t agree with everything that you’re saying” and dah, dah, dah. I’m fine with that. Unlike some people, I have no problem with people having their own opinions. I do get a little depressed when I feel like people have unformed opinions and they hold that up as “Well, it is equal to your informed opinion.” That bothers me. Because I literally spend my entire life reading about this stuff. It’s all I do, and if it’s not all that you do, then I can’t really engage with you … I don’t like getting into it, you know? I can’t fix the educational system. I can’t fix systemic things by myself. But all I can do is say what I feel and back it up with a lot of data and historical research. Ultimately, I’m a musician and an artist, and I try to let that speak. But every once in a while, I think you do need to say how (you feel)… because we’re human beings.  And my humanity is part of all of the art that I do.

My art informs how I think as a human being. So when I say something, it is because of the art that I do. They’re connected; you can’t separate one from the other. I just choose not to engage one publicly all the time, because I have other fish to fry. You know, everything that I’ve ever done is a political piece of art, whether people just enjoy it without knowing that or whatever. It’s all political because of the stories that I’m telling. And it’s not my choice to make it political. It’s made political by other people. It’s like when people are like, “Why do you always have to talk about race?” That’s not my choice, darling. Like, I didn’t bring race into this country! I would love to never mention anything about race ever again — I would love that. But I’ve done too much research on minstrelsy to be able to do that. I’m in the archives looking at this stuff year after year, these images of this history, and I’m just like: Yo, you can’t just make that go poof just by saying it’s not important, you know?

So every once in a while I feel moved, and I’m not doing it to change any minds, because I’m not gonna change anybody’s minds. It’s scientifically shown that we tend to look for things that confirm what we already know, and you have to work really hard to fight that, and that’s really not what we value as a society at the moment. So I am really just providing a space for people to go, “You know what? Me, too. I’m scared too. I’m upset too. This is frustrating to me.” That’s all I can do, and provide music and art that might challenge somebody, or maybe it might not.

But that’s ultimately why I moved my show, because I was like: I’m an artist and a musician and entertainer, and people are coming to me for a certain atmosphere. And if people don’t feel safe coming to where my show is, then I need to move my show. I was not interested in saying “Eff you” to the current administration — I don’t really care. I’m more concerned about people. And I don’t even care about the money. I might lose money moving it… Going from the Kennedy Center to a standing-room rock venue is not the obvious choice… I’m not doing this for career. People have the craziest idea of what will make you famous in this world. It just seemed like the right thing to do. It’s a hard time to be an artist right now. I was like, did I have to have this year be the one that I had a Kennedy Center show? But that’s OK. People will agree or not agree. But what I will say is that I do support all the different choices that people are having to make. Some people are staying; some people are just canceling straight-out. I felt like I had the best of both worlds because I could move it and still serve my fans in D.C. I knew I didn’t just want to outright cancel it, because ultimately I’m here for them.

It’s hard to imagine most people could be too shocked that you made that move, at least anyone who really knows you and what you’re about.

It always amazes me — people who I guess dip into my music or have heard one thing, like they saw the tune on “Parenthood,” and then they see a post and they’re like, what? And I don’t know what to tell you because I have been pretty consistent over the last couple decades.

Is there irony that strikes you in the fact that you do all these extensive projects, including writing an award-winning opera, but then the most media mentions you’re gonna get are for doing a banjo part on Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which you probably did not devote a lot of months to?

Well, it’s a different kind of engagement. The work that I do every day is the work that sustains me and continues to sustain me, long after “Cowboy Carter” has ceased to be the topic of conversation. So it’s important to do all sorts of engagement. For me, that engagement was important because it was within parts of the Black community that I’ve never had a reach to. And so, those who came from Beyonce to me, it’s not as many as people might think, but those that have, I’m delighted. Even people who just posted a video of them dancing to it, it made me really happy. To hear my 1868 replica fretless banjo being a TikTok trend was nuts, you know? And I now have a TikTok (account) that has some people on it, which is nice. You know, not a lot. And I’m only using it for an educational tool.

Sometimes people don’t understand: I don’t do any of this for fame or fortune. I need enough money to keep going, to do this obsessive mission, which is obsessive. And if anything, I’ve just been lucky enough to get where I can have a little bit of influence, a little bit of a platform, by not having compromised myself too terribly much. So… that was an interesting experience.

You had expressed some kind of mixed feelings about how it all panned out.

Well, it is just a reminder that that world is very different to the musical world that I’m in. Just that kind of multi-multimillionaire world is very different to what I do, so I’m very happy to be back to my corner.

When you dip into the world of popular music, it all contributes, conceivably, to your mission, right? Even if 99.9% of the people are not gonna come over to see what you’re working on or espousing, there’s gonna be some people who do.

And I’ve heard from banjo teachers who were like, “Ever since that song came out, I’ve gotten five new students.” It has, I think, far-reaching tendrils that I’ll never know. And every once in a while somebody will be able to say, “Oh, because I saw that, I picked up the banjo,” or “Because I heard that, I thought about…” That’s why you do these things. You put the seed out there and you hope it grows. And sometimes you never see the tree, but it’s out there, giving somebody fruit, which is wonderful.

There can be a lot of layers to what you do. You call this music that you’re doing on this album “front porch music,” and so that doesn’t necessarily convey that it has all this historical import, although it does; there’s just a level on which it’s friendly, good-feeling music. I can remember the first time I saw the Carolina Chocolate Drops, in a red state, where a lot of people were just having a party. Then there are people who are understanding all the levels that you’re doing stuff on. You are an educator, but you also embrace the basic good time that comes from some of this music.

I mean, ultimately, you want people to walk out of a show hopeful, joyful, and with maybe a slightly more complicated, new take on history. Or not — but the opportunity is there if people want it. But ultimately at the end, you don’t want people feeling depressed. You don’t want people feeling attacked. You don’t want people feeling like, “Hey, I didn’t do this. Why are you saying this is my fault?” That’s why I always like to be like, “Look, I didn’t know this either. We’re all learning this together. We’re all trying to fix this together, and now let’s dance.”

You know, you’ve gotta pick the moments where it gets dark. It can’t be a lot. The less there is, the deeper it goes and the more likely it lingers — and then there’s humor to kind of lighten it all up. I realized that early on. It was the first time I kind of made a joke after talking about “At the Purchaser’s Auction,” which is a very dark story, and everybody was just like, “Ah, thank you, I needed to laugh.” All of these things are important to have together, all the layers. It’s like you said, you’ve got to be able to engage with it in the space that you’re in, and hopefully invite people to be a part of it rather than beating ’em over the head with stuff. Because nobody wants that or needs it.

Rhiannon Giddens’ 2025 tour itinerary:

April 25-27 – Durham, NC – Biscuits & Banjos
April 30 – Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel
May 2 – Miami, FL – Miami Beach Bandshell
May 3 – Atlanta, GA – The Eastern
May 4 – Birmingham, AL – Jemison Concert Hall @ Alys Robinson Stephens Center
May 7 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
May 8 – Cincinnati, OH – Memorial Hall
May 9 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
May 11 – Washington, DC – The Anthem
May 13 – Grand Rapids, MI – St. Cecilia Music Center
May 15 – Toronto, ON – Koerner Hall at The Royal Conservatory of Music
May 16 – Toronto, ON – Koerner Hall at The Royal Conservatory of Music
May 17 – Ottawa, ON – National Arts Centre, Southam Hall
June 15 – Napa, CA – Uptown Theatre
June 16 – Ventura, CA – Ventura Theater
June 18 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Bowl (with Our Native Daughters, Steve Martin, Ed Helms, Leyla McCalla, Amythyst Kiah and Allison Brown)
June 19 – San Diego, CA – The Observatory North Park
June 21 – Berkeley, CA – Zellerbach
June 23 – Seattle, WA – The Moore Theater
June 26 – Montréal, QC – Théâtre Maisonneuve @ Montreal Jazz Festival
July 11 – Tucson, AZ – Fox Tucson Theatre
July 12 – Flagstaff, AZ – Pepsi Amphitheater
July 14 – Santa Fe, NM – Lensic Performing Arts Center
July 16 – Salt Lake City, UT – Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre
July 18 – Sonoma, CA – Green Music Center
July 19 – Navarro, CA – Redwood Ramble
July 21 – Saratoga, CA – The Mountain Winery
July 24 – Reno, NV – Robert Z. Hawkins Amphitheater
July 25 – Boise, ID – Egyptian Theatre
July 27 – Steamboat Springs, CO – Strings Music Festival
July 28 – Boulder, CO – Chautauqua Park
July 29 – Denver, CO – Ogden Theatre
July 31 – Vail, CO – Vilar Performing Arts Center