Top 50 Rhiannon Giddens Quotes

There is music out there that is commercially driven, whether you like it or not. That’s a peculiarly American innovation. We innovated the commercial music business.

I stood on people‘s shoulders, so I want to be there for somebody else to take it even further.

I think that we definitely want to experiment, and if there’s a hip-hop song that we like, we’ll cover it. We don’t want to be one of those bands that’s like, you know, you know – Carolina Chocolate Drops does hip-hop. I mean, just know – you know, if it naturally works itself in, you know, cool.

I don’t consider myself at the kind of stature of somebody who can play five cities on a tour, and that’s it. I go where I’m wanted, and I’ve always had the rural areas of the country. We’ve always gone there, since the Carolina Chocolate Drops. There’s a fan base that’s there, and if I can afford to do it, I do it.

At some point you have to take responsibility for who you are and where you are and being able to listen to other points of view, whichever side of the tracks you’re on.

If I wasn’t touring, I wasn’t making money. When I got the MacArthur, I could get off that hamster wheel. It meant I didn’t have to do anything.

The question is not how do we get diversity into bluegrass, but how do we get diversity back into bluegrass?

I really got into Gaelic music and the whole sound of it, and I got to go to Scotland.

There are people who have incredible stories that we don’t talk about. People who did amazing things, men and women who faced incredible odds, and there’s nothing wrong with them being heroes for once, you know?

I used to subscribe to Nintendo Power. The first issue had ‘Mario 2,’ and it had all the characters rendered in clay. So I started making all of these characters out of clay.

American music is always best when it comes from a mixture of things.

I couldn’t stand the politics in opera.

I’m not gonna force something or fake something to try to get more black people at my shows. I’m not gonna do some big hip-hop crossover.

Separation in culture and arts does nobody any favors except for the people in power. That’s just it… So I feel like I’m in the business of challenging that narrative.

We’re not here as a black band playing white string band music. You know, we play stuff in the Appalachians, we play stuff in the white community, but we really highlight the black community‘s music.

I love the U.K. folk scene. In the States, nobody knows what to do with me. There’s still a very narrow definition of Americana.

My stuff lives in Nashville but I live wherever my children are.

I grew up listening to country music. I got into traditional stuff later, but I listened to the commercial stuff of the ’90s, especially the women who were so strong, like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kathy Mattea. It’s a great art form.

People seem ready for a more in-depth idea of folk music, culture and history.

I’ve been getting interested in reimagining folk songs and writing songs that should have existed but didn’t, particularly around the Civil War when black voices were muted and only allowed particular channels.

When I got into college, I got into operatic vocalists, like Leontyne Price.

When I first heard the minstrel banjo – I played a gourd first – I almost lost my mind. I was like, Oh, my god. And then I went to Africa, to the Gambia, and studied the akonting, which is an ancestor of the banjo, and just that connection to me was just immense.

So my mom’s folks are from one side of Greensboro – and, you know, outside of Greensboro. And my dad‘s folks, the white side, is from another very small town outside of Greensboro. So both sides are coming from the country.

When you sit at the feet of an elder, it changes you.

Black women have historically had the most to lose and have therefore been the fiercest fighters for justice.

I wouldn’t be out here touring constantly if I didn’t hope that my music was going to do something to somebody.

Othering people is something that humans have done for ever.

I’ve always liked women singers and appreciate a good story being told. That’s what country music used to do on the radio.

My work as a whole is about excavating and shining a light on pieces of history that not only need to be seen and heard, but that can also add to the conversation about what’s going on now.

There was such hostility to the idea of a banjo being a black instrument. It was co-opted by this white supremacist notion that old-time music was the inheritance of white America.

We have been fed so many false narratives, many of them racialized to deliberately feed a racist agenda. It’s important to address and dig into that wherever you can.

You have to find the balance of figuring out how can I be effective? How can I use my platform for good, you know, without jeopardizing everything so that I don’t have that platform anymore.

Well, you know, the original banjos were all handmade instruments. Gourd – it would be made with gourds and whatever, you know, materials would have been around. And, you know, first hundred years of its existence, the banjo’s known as a plantation instrument, as a black instrument, you know?

We have to talk about the negativity, but we have to enjoy the beauty of what this country, culturally, has done.

It’s not about me, it’s about the music. I don’t do this because I want to be a star. I don’t do this because I want to make a lot of money.

The best part of a MacArthur is having some pressure taken off from touring relentlessly.

I’ll talk about the banjo all day long and the history of minstrel shows.

What’s really interesting to me is to have a connection to what was going on in the past, but to make it a living thing.

Ibn Said‘s autobiography is an extraordinary work, and his story is one that’s absolutely crucial to tell.

I keep starting supergroups, writing ballets and things like that.

I have to continue to work, and I have to be touring, because that’s how I earn a living.

Know thy history. Let it horrify you; let it inspire you.

African-American history is American history.

People say, ‘I’m tired of thinking about race, it’s a drag.’ Yeah, well, welcome to my life! I don’t care who you are. We have the time and the headspace for this stuff. The least you can do is take a moment.

I love being on the road and I love my band, but also need to be with my kids more and I need to be creating more.

When you are a commercial music artist, your music depends on your popularity.

I don’t want to go on a talk show and talk about stuff I don’t know about.

Every song has a heart, and I just go for that.

When I first got into string-band music I felt like such an interloper. It was like I was sneaking into this music that wasn’t my own… I constantly felt the awkwardness of being the raisin in the oatmeal.

I’m so interested in the feminism of women in American music. These ladies, going out on the road, way before the opportunities and advantages that I have – it was absolutely rough out there. The fact that they were still able to get their art out there and do what they’re doing is really impressive to me.