Rhiannon Giddens

Because of the lack of historical documentation from enslaved people, Giddens focused much of her research on slave advertisements, including those for runaway fiddlers who played in popular string bands in ballrooms in Virginia and the Carolinas. In her research, she discovered an ad from the 1800s for an enslaved woman, with her 9-month-old child listed alongside her “at the purchaser’s option.”

She presented her original song, inspired by this discovery, to the Forum audience with the refrain, “You can take my body, but not my soul.” Giddens confessed, “If I leave nothing else behind in this world, if it’s this one song, I feel like it was a life well lived. It is our responsibility to make sure that the voices of the people who came before us who didn’t have opportunities to be heard to do whatever we can to make them heard.”

Rhiannon Giddens explained her journey of falling in love with the banjo and working as a caller for square dancers. She turned that love into her work after her time at the renowned Oberlin Conservatory of Music. This authentic exploration made the audience fall in love with Giddens’ breezy presence, despite the difficult subjects confronted in her talk like minstrelsy and blackface. She acknowledged that these unpleasant aspects of history are precisely why their importance is brushed under the rug.

Despite today’s apt distaste for the negative aspects of minstrelsy, African-American string band players had a true impact on American – and thereafter worldwide – musical history. An artist, creator, and critical thinker, Giddens ended her evening with The Forum by challenging the audience, when confronted with new information, to ask themselves, “Why don’t I know that?”

This closing question ends another season of The Richmond Forum by embodying its key objectives: learning new information, taking in profound perspectives, and asking yourself big questions.

In the question and answer portion of the program moderated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, Sydney and Francis Lewis Family Curator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Rhiannon Giddens noted:

• She believes music brings people together throughout history because it allows us to tap into our spirituality and become the best that we can be.
• Giddens sees her music as an act of resistance within itself. She remarked that every time the Carolina Chocolate Drops played, it was an act of resistance. “A black person playing a banjo in front of your face can do more than ten books.” As she embarked on her solo career, she chose to use the banjo as one of her main instruments as a tool to confront misconceptions.
• For the next germination of black string players, Giddens is excited to see more people of color and women picking up the banjo. Many of those who are in this space draw inspiration from the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and she looks toward the day when there’s “the next big black string band.”
• Giddens moved to Ireland with her children so they had the opportunity to learn in Gaelic (their father’s linguistic lineage) since Giddens doesn’t have the privilege of knowing her own. She takes residence in Limerick, Ireland, the same town as Richmond Forum Host Patron Chris Little, CEO of Singlestone. Her children do study music, but Giddens wants them to have the opportunity to explore their own musical interests and she hasn’t necessarily tried to steer them toward the banjo.
• Giddens ended the question and answer segment by remarking on her excitement for the premiere of the opera she composed, Omar, at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Giddens is moved by the story of Omar Ibn Said, a Muslim slave who struggled with his faith in contrast with Christianity.