Rhiannon Giddens traces the banjo from her ancestors to Beyoncé

This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. There are many ways you may know my guest, singer, banjo player, fiddler, and songwriter Rhiannon Giddens. Early in her career, she co-founded the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which played music from the black string band tradition dating back to slave times. She's since recorded several solo albums. On one of them, she recorded and wrote several songs based on slave narratives, and one song based on an ad from a slaveholder looking to sell a young enslaved woman, offering the buyer the option of buying the woman's nine-month-old baby. Giddens studied opera singing in college and won a Pulitzer Prize for co-writing the opera Omar about a Muslim scholar from Senegal who was sold into slavery in the U.S. She also was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, popularly known as the Genius Grant. She's now the artistic director of the Silk Road Ensemble, which was founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and is dedicated to playing with musicians from around the world, drawing on their musical traditions. If all that isn't enough to spark your interest, it's time to bring in the name Beyoncé. It's Giddens playing banjo on Texas Hold'em, the hit track on Beyoncé's country music album Cowboy Carter. We'll talk about that a little later. Rhiannon Giddens has a new album called Hope is the Thing with Feathers. The title track is the title of an Emily Dickinson poem that Giddens has set to music. She's brought her banjo and fiddle and will play and sing a little later in the show. Let's start with a track from the new album. This is Step Away Blues, which she co-wrote. Step Away Blues is what you co-wrote. You write in the liner notes that you think it definitely feels like a song for your crone ears. And crone isn't a kind of archaic word for people who don't know the definition. It's basically a condescending and contemptful word for an old woman who typically is ugly if the word crone is used. So when you say your crone ears, what do you mean? And why is that a song for your crone ears? You know, there's words that have dictionary definitions. There's words that have connotations that were generations ago. And then there's words that are being reclaimed. And I feel like crone is one of those words, because women who have gone through menopause tend to disappear in societies, including ours. And I think we are all looking for ways to reclaim that time, because it actually is a time of great power, which is why, of course, it's been under attack for all of patriarchal history, you know. So for me, it's a time of great power. And I feel like crone is one of those words that we use. And for me, that's the way I use crone, is actually in more of a reclamatory, is that a word? A reclamation sense of, you know, it just means I'm in this period of my life. And so that's kind of the spirit of me using that word, is not in a denigration to myself, but more of a reclamation kind of spirit, if that makes sense. So in what way is that song a defining song for your crone ears? Well, I'm entering in that time. I'm 49 years old. You know, and so I'm just kind of entering in this space of this chapter where I just don't care anymore. You know what I mean? Like, I just want to say what I have to say. And, you know, it will be taken the way it's taken. I mean, obviously, within reason, but I need to step into that a little bit, because I've spent a lot of my career sort of, you know, being the peacemaker, being the mediator, sort of trying to represent things in a way that's not too offensive, but that, you know, really sits in an emotionally hard space. And that's a very difficult thing to carry. And I've been carrying it for a long time. And I definitely am feeling like I need to let some of that go. And, you know, if I come out with something a little stronger, if not now, then when, you know, so I'm feeling that coming on. And that song kind of represents that for me. So in Step Away Blues, part of the lyric is, I'm tired of taking off my skin so you can see my heart. Yeah. Where were you in your life when you wrote that, that you thought about that line? It's been a, it's been challenging. The work that I do, you know, I'm really lucky to get to do what I do. And I feel really so blessed, right? So let's get that out of the way. Like, I have privilege, I have a great team, everything. However, the work that I do is very cultural, really difficult, because what I'm doing is, in a large part, I'm talking about very difficult things in our history to mostly white audiences, you know. So every night, I'm, I'm sort of just burying everything, you know, so that people can have an emotional connection to some really, really difficult history. I shouldn't have to do that, you know. And so I'm happy to do it. But it wears on you. It wears on you. And the years pass, and you continue to perform blackness for people in a way that is palatable, right? In a way that keeps everybody there and not walking out the door. And that is only something I can do for so long, you know. And so it kind of combines with this age thing, where I'm kind of hitting this time where I'm like, do I want to keep doing this? I don't know. So part of the ability of engaging in art, engaging in art, making songs, making, making visual art, whatever you're doing, dancing, is a way that you can draw strength from the emotions that you're feeling about things in a way that maybe other people can draw strength from. Well, you're in an interesting spot, because like, you represent, just as a person, a lot of different traditions mixed into one human being. So it makes, it just seems to parallel, you know, the music that you play and the traditions that you draw on. But drawing on so many black traditions as part of your music, you've felt uncomfortable performing mostly for white audiences and frustrated that black audiences often don't seem interested in the music and assume that it's not really black. And you've said that the first times you felt really accepted by black audiences is when you performed at Sing Sing Prison in New York, and when you were on Beyonce's country album, Cowboy Carter. So can we talk about Sing Sing for a moment? Yeah, and just to be really specific, that's just the blackest audience I'd ever had. You know, it was the audience, the fullest of black people, which, of course, is like, so overwhelming. You know, all of the layers that that represents, you know, that I'm in a prison and then, you know, looking at the carceral system is so, so messed up and is so overrepresented by black and brown people. And I mean, that's a whole history, right? But then the cultural response that I got on that night, I had never really gotten before, because I'd never had a majority black audience, you know, and so it's just so many layers. I've had black people at my shows always, and there's all, I always know all of them. I see them all, I kind of count them, you know what I mean? And like I've said many times, like, I love my audiences no matter what. Like, my thing has been, I want to get, I wanted to get more, I wanted the black, see, it's like, it's so complicated, because it's like, there's black people who know my work, right? So when you're talking about black mainstream media, like, okay, is that really, how much do I need to worry about that? So I've kind of like struggled with that, and that's why the, doing the Beyonce song, doing Sinners, like, being a consultant on Sinners and having a song on that soundtrack, those are mainstream things, you know, that were then also connected to, you know, like, in Sinners and the Beyonce song, black culture in a way that I couldn't cross into just doing my folk circuit and doing what I do. So those things were really strategically, like, I was like, I just want to be able to do what I do, and I just want to be able to do what I do. So I want anybody who's in the mainstream black community who may not, you know, come over to the banjo in the fiddle world because of the story that's told around it, because of the assumption that it is white music, I wanted it to be there so that it's another way in. I just want people within the black community to know this is also an option for you, and you can do it in a way that doesn't feel like you're asking permission. Like, I had to go through that, but there's so many people who are starting to realize this is something that is for them as well, and it's part of their history, and they're picking up, you know, gourd banjos and fretless banjos, and it's small, but it's growing. So that's really wonderful, and, like, that's why I do those things. They're very difficult to do, like, existing, dealing with anything in the pop world is hard, you know, because I'm a folky to the bone. Since I've brought up Beyonce and Texas Hold'em, did she tell you what she wanted you to play? Did she have something in mind or did she just say like, do what you think is best that makes sense for you? the song because you open the recording. You're the first thing we hear. I wrote that lick and I wrote the viola that's also on there. So that is something that I came up with. So let's hear a little bit of it. This is Texas Hold'em with Rhiannon Giddens on banjo and viola if we get that far into the recording. So that was Rhiannon Giddens on banjo on Beyonce's Texas Hold'em from her country album Cowboy Carter. I love that track. And I think it sounds great with you on it. So like how did that change your life, if at all? Because you're not used to being part of like the mass media mainstream. I mean, when that album came out, everybody was talking about it. So did that like change your life in any way or change your perception of what it's like to be in the center of like the pop music world and the black pop music world? It didn't change my life because I wasn't in the center of it. You know, my sound, that sound was and that was wonderful for me. It's all I ever wanted. I didn't want any more than that. It was there to be discovered. It's there to be discovered. I watched all the line dances to it on Instagram and TikTok. And I was just like, that was really exciting for me. And that's all I wanted from it. I continued to do the work that I've always done. I did a lot of free emotional labor during that time, advocating for anyone's right to this music from the black community because of the history of it. And I have receipts. So I wrote, you know, opinion articles for The Guardian and I did interviews and I was constantly asked about this. And to my ability, you know, given legalities, I was able to do that. And I I, what I did is I used it as an opportunity to advocate for the true history, the true cross cultural history of country. And that's what I always try to do. Anything that I do, it is for that purpose. It is for the mission of uplifting voices that have not been previously really uplifted and to try to burst the mythology that has been set up around this music, which is, you know, white supremacist and nationalistic, you know, and it's very clear that, you know, these narratives are there to do damage. So I'm always trying to try to correct that. I'm not interested in it for my own, you know, my own gain, not interested. I really am there to tell the story. And that's what I did over and over and over again when Cowboy Carter came out. So it gave me that opportunity to have that platform. Myself, you know, I may be a gained a few more followers or whatever. And, and also cachet. I got cachet in the black community for that. That to me was priceless. Like, if you're a black person, you're a black person, you're a black person, you're a black person. If I talk to a black person and I'm like, and they're like, what do you do? And I'm like, you know, I play the banjo. They're like, huh? And I'm like, you know, you know, uh, Texas Hold'em, you know, that was me. And then they go, oh, you know what I mean? And that's like, that's amazing. So as a black banjo player who has, you know, been trying to advocate within our own culture for this, that was a huge, that's a huge card for me to be able to play. And it gave you a chance to tell more people that the banjo has African origins and that, you know, it's not a white mountain instrument. It, it comes from black tradition and then white people picked it up too. And, but that's how music is. It travels through all these different cultures and circles and things mix and it just keeps growing. That, that's exactly it. And the thing is the banjo is all of those things also. It is and also, because other marginalized groups, you know, when you think about people who settled in the Appalachian mountains, they were poor, you know what I mean? And they were under attack. By the, you know, by people who wanted the resources of the mountains and they, they adopt this instrument so thoroughly that it becomes their own as well. So the, everybody played the banjo. You know, it starts as an African diasporic instrument invented in the Caribbean under duress in a time of unimaginable, like slavery in the Caribbean. We think slavery is bad. Whatever we think is worse when we, when it comes to the Caribbean, right? And it's a crucible where a lot of actually what we think of as Americans, the American creolization happens in the Caribbean first and it comes up with enslaved people who were brought from there. So the banjo is coming up as a part of that and it becomes the fabric, part of the fabric of the new emergent American culture. Well, since we're talking about banjo, can I ask you to pick up yours? And a song that you can do from the new album that translates to banjo, even though it's guitar on the album, is a song that's known as an Elizabeth Cotton song. It's said that she wrote it when she's, was 12, but there's also two male songwriters who I suppose added lyrics, but why don't you sing the song and then, yeah, then we can talk about more, more about its origins. Frayed train, frayed train, runs so fast. Please don't tell what train I'm on. They won't know what route I'm going. When I'm dead and in my grave, no more good time here I crave. Place the stones at my head and feet, tell them all I've gone to see. When I die, Lord, bury me deep, way down on old Chestnut Street. So I can hear old mother now, as she goes rolling by. That sounded great. Thanks for doing it. So Elizabeth Cotton, who wrote Frayed Train, she became like, popular during the folk revival period in the U.S. And she was still performing then, as I recall. So she's not exactly contemporary, but it's not like she's from the 1800s or turn of the century. Well, she represents an older style of playing because, you know, she stopped playing for a long time. She was a domestic, and she ended up working for the Seeger family, which is the best family to work for. Oh, is that how she was rediscovered? They discovered her. And so then they were like, here's a good time. Get out there and play. And then she was discovered by a lot of people in the folk revival movement because she was, but she, she was, there's this big scoop in the middle of her life. So she's playing an old style, you know, because she, she didn't, she wasn't playing. So then when she picked it back up, you know, obviously in her left, her left-handed upside down fashion, she was, she was playing a style that hadn't really been heard that much. So that's why so many people are inspired by her. My guest is banjo player, fiddler, singer and songwriter Rhiannon Gilmore. She's also the artistic director of the Silk Road Ensemble and started her career playing music from the black string band tradition, dating back to slave times with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which she co-founded. Also, if you like our show and listen to our podcast, please subscribe to Fresh Air on Apple or Spotify. It helps a lot. Thank you. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air. While he was scheming, I was beaming And his beamer just beaming Can't believe that I caught my man cheating So I found another way to make him pay for it all So I went to Neiman Marcus on a shopping spree And on the way I grabbed Soleil and Mia And as the cash box rang I threw everything away Hey ladies, when your man wanna get buck wild Just go back and hit him up style Get your hands on his cash and spend it to the last I'm for real This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with singer, banjo player, fiddler, and songwriter Rhiannon Giddens. Her new solo album is called Hope is the Thing with Feathers. She's also the artistic director of the Silk Road Ensemble, which was founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and started her career playing music from the black string band tradition dating back to slave times with a band she co-founded called the Carolina Chocolate. She studied opera singing at Oberlin and won a Pulitzer Prize for co-writing the opera Omar, which was commissioned by the Spoleto Festival based on a memoir by a Muslim scholar from Senegal who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the U.S. You may also know Giddens as the banjo player on Beyonce's hit record Texas Hold'em from Beyonce's country album Cowboy Carter. Let's talk about your music background and your background. You grew up in North Carolina. You spent a lot of your life in North Carolina, although you're still living in Ireland as far as I know. Yes. Yes. Your mother is black. Your father is white. They married like three years after the Supreme Court made illegal any laws that banned interracial marriage. But they split up, I think, when you were very young, and you spent most of the first eight years of your life living in the country with your grandparents. What was country life like? What was country life like for you when you were very young? Yeah. You know, the older I get, the more grateful I am for that. Because? Because there was nothing to do. You know, I mean, it was wild because it was just, it was a very slow pace, and it was an experience that I realized how much it has shaped me the older I get, you know. And, you know, you're kind of like, why am I into this music? Well, there's a reason, because it was actually both sides of my family. We're in the country. You know, my dad's side, the white side, was also in a town, you know, not that far away, and it was all rural. It was all agrarian, you know. And my uncle and my grandmother worked at a tobacco factory, and, you know, it was just a very southern childhood. What kind of music were you exposed to by your parents, by your grandparents? I mean, I would have heard, you know, like blues and jazz records, and like R&B stuff from my grandparents, but also hee-haw, you know. My grandmother loved the banjo player on that. I can't remember his name now. So were you exposed to jazz at all when you were young? A little bit. Like, just what I would have heard in my grandmother's records. I didn't really get into it, though. I just had, I kind of have her vocal quality in my ear, like, because she would sing along with stuff, you know. It's a very oldie, kind of 20s, 30s kind of style. So my 20s voice really comes from, from my grandmother's voice, like hearing her sing and thinking about, you know, and having this, so it's part of my kind of aural DNA, if that makes sense. So I want to play a song that is the closest you've come to jazz that I have heard of your recordings, and it's called Who Are You Dreaming Of? And it's really beautiful, and your voice is always beautiful, but it's a different form of beauty because it's a different kind of singing. And I just fell in love with it, so would you say something about writing the song and this style of singing for you and why you wanted to do it? Yeah, I wrote this with my longtime songwriting partner, Dirk Powell, who I also produced my latest record with. And it was for a project, and they wanted something that was straddling the 20s to the 30s. So it's kind of got elements of both in there. And so it was such a joy to write that song and to be able to inhabit that voice, which maybe in another lifetime, or if I hadn't found banjo music, maybe that's a road. That I would have gone down because, you know, I really can sing that stuff. But it was an opportunity to really kind of settle into it and just let it live, fly. Okay, why don't we hear it? Who are you dreaming of? Could it be some other love? A now and then. For your eyes alone. So though you lie in my embrace, that tender smile upon your face says to me, I love you. I might still be on my own. That's Rhiannon Giddens from her album, You're the One, which was recorded in 2023. She has a new album called Hope is the Thing with Feathers. That is so lovely, Rhiannon. I'm so glad you recorded it. Me too. I love, love, love crawling into styles and just living in them. Like, I was listening to it, remembering the feel of that song in my mouth. I just love it so much, you know? So, yeah, it was cool. My guest is Rhiannon Giddens. We'll be right back. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. Let's get back to my interview with Rhiannon Giddens. She's also the artistic director of the Silk Road Ensemble and started her career playing music from the black string band tradition dating back to slave times with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which she co-founded. You decided to go to Oberlin College and study opera singing there, which you never really pursued because you found the black string band tradition. Yeah, it's kind of, it wasn't, it's not a usual path from opera to the banjo. There's nothing about you that is usual. That's true. As far as I can tell. Well, yeah. Okay, so you don't sing opera, but you do the black string band tradition. And since you have the fiddle with you, can you talk about what is the black string band tradition? You studied with somebody, or your mentor in that tradition was Joe Thompson, who played music from that tradition and lived not far from you and grew up in the same town as your maternal grandmother. Yes. So there was an immediate connection there when you met him, I think, at like a music conference. At the Black Banjo Gathering, yeah. He was 86, and he was the last of his family to play this music, and they were the Thompson family band. So it was him and his brother first, and then him and his cousin, and then it was just him when we met him. And it had been, you know, passed down as this sort of family tradition, and it can be traced back to the time of slavery. And the black string band tradition used to be enormous. Everybody, there were black string bands everywhere. I kind of called them like the jukebox. Of the pre-recording era America. But the basic thing is that the black string band was a big thing. And you cannot take it out of the history of American music. Everything collapses like a souffle. So the ability that we had to go study his music, to be his apprentices, because this is the old style of apprenticeship. You just go play with the other person. You know, like we would sit with him on Thursday nights, and we would just play his tunes over and over again. So, it is a part of everything that I do, is that, and I know how privileged I am, the older I get, that I had a living link, an elder, somebody that I'm related to in the family tree. It's so rare in this kind of music in the black community because we were erased so much. And because people who were watching it and recording it weren't interested in what we were doing. You know, so, to have that is a real, real gift. So, yeah, I play, I do play fiddle. Like, I played banjo with Joe, but there's an old time tune on the new record. But I can play, I'll play a Joe tune because I think that's more useful. This is called Black Annie. © transcript Emily Beynon Oh, Black Danny got away Oh, Black Danny got away Oh, Black Danny got away In the middle of the park Oh, Black Danny got away It was regional, and we tend to divide it into racial categories because of the commercial music industry. That's really when that starts. Because, like, back in the day, you just played the music that you played, and you heard what somebody down the street was playing, and then, you know what I mean? So, again, that commercialism has really messed with us, you know, in so many ways. You know that kind of, like, double-time bowing that you did? Is that something you learned from? Yeah, it's like, you know, Justin Robinson is really the main proponent for his fiddle style, like, these days. But, you know, this, this, you know, this, there's a, his bowing. His bowing was very particular, and it was really beautiful. I can only do an approximation of it, but things like, you know. He would, he did this pushing up thing, you know, Justin calls it the barking puppy. Yeah, it's, I feel like there's times when I feel like I'm falling into his vibe, you know? And it's like, that's the other important thing about this music. Is that it is really ancestral. Like, and it, and that's for everybody. Like, you know, this music has such a history, and that's why it's so important to keep alive. It's such a history, and there's times when I'm playing it. There's times when I'm playing the banjo, and I just, like, feel, like, I feel the ancestors. Like, I feel the, the, the spirits come through. And it's like, that's the only thing that's kept me going in this industry. Is knowing that I'm connected in that way to the people who came before. And that, like, my nephew is. He was 27, and he was 5 when he met Joe, and he plays banjo, and he plays bones. And, like, when I hear him, I'm like, when I'm dead, you know what I mean? It's, again, that it can't stop with you. It's got to keep going. So, you've been living in Ireland for how many years? Maybe, since my son was 2, so I guess 10, 11 years. And what brought you there? Well, my, my ex-husband is Irish. He's from Limerick. And we got together and got married and then had two kids. And. And I wanted them to also be able to speak Irish. Well, they say Gaelic here, but in Ireland, they say Irish. And I wanted them to be able to speak that. I said to my, my ex, Mike, who's my very dear friend now. You know, I don't know what my ancestors spoke, but you do. He'd grown up, you know, learning it in school. And I said, what, what a opportunity to give them. And so, they've been there, you know, most of their lives. And they speak Irish, which I'm so happy about. And so, that was really the reason. So, I'm just like, I'm here for my kids. And I'm here for myself. Because actually, I'm, I'm now, you know, finally, after years and years of being mom and just, you know, doing the dishes and making biscuits when I was there. I'm finally able to now that they're 13 and 17 to start making some baby steps into Irish music. And I've picked up the concertina. And I've started, I have a teacher there. And I love it so much, you know. And so, I'm, I'm slowly but surely kind of now having my own life in Ireland, which is really beautiful. Do you do Gaelic songs? I do. I do Scots Gaelic songs. So, that's, that's the language spoken in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It's very closely related to Irish Gaelic. But that was sort of what I, I knew some of those things before I went to Ireland. So, I, that's what, it takes me a long time to do songs in a different language because I want to make sure they're as perfect as I can get them, you know. But now, I'm like, okay, it's time to start learning some Irish songs and get in there. Could you sing a few bars of a song that you would not have known? Had you not moved to Ireland? Oh, yeah, yeah. This is one I sing with my daughter. I can sing a little bit of it because I only have, I don't have much of it memorized. But we'll sing this together, which I love. When we were in, in Italy and we were, I was visiting a, a, a, a traditional Italian singer. And she was singing these beautiful songs. And my, my daughter was there. And I was like, we're going to sing you a little song in Irish. And this is what we did. We're going to sing a little song in Irish. That's the chorus. It's a, it's a really funny, it's a, it's a really funny story. But I just love, I love singing that with her because it's like one little connection that we have from being in Ireland together. How does that translate? It's like a, it's a jealous woman song, basically. It's a great pity that I'm not Paul Jean's wife. And the woman, it's a great pity that I'm not. And the woman that he has to be dead. I wish she was dead. I wish she was dead, basically. You know, may your legs be broken, Paul Jean's wife. May your legs be broken. Here, I'll sing, I'll sing the chorus and the, and that verse. I'll sing the chorus and the, and that verse. I mean, it's just like, totally, like, it's the same kind of feeling. I'm like, there, there you go. Like, these folk songs, like, anyway, it's, it's, that's a whole nother conversation. And also, like, where she was from and, you know, who knows. But the, but the vibe, the vibe is the same. Well, let's hear a little bit of Dolly Parton singing that song. She married the one I love today. When my back was turned, she turned. Took him away. Now, while they're all outside, waiting to throw rice. What I want to throw will surely black her eyes. Cause I don't want to throw rice. I want to throw rocks at her. She took the only love I had. That was Dolly Parton singing a song that she co-wrote with Buck Owens. Rhianna Giddens, what did Dolly Parton mean to you? You recorded one of her songs. Dolly was a singular person. She wasn't, you know, I'm very uneasy with lionization. And I'm very uneasy with putting people on pedestals, you know. Especially if they're great musicians and we're doing it because they're great musicians. I don't think we deserve anything more than anybody. You know, you get good at something, you get to do that something that's great. But, you know, people who are living life the way that she did do deserve to be held up for a second. Because, like, you know, she took her power and she did a lot of really beautiful things with it. So there's a lot to be admired about her in her life. Just the way that she walked through. So I think about what I want to do, what I want to leave behind, how I want to walk through the rest of my career if I'm blessed enough to live. A fraction of how long has she lived, you know. And so it's good to have people that you admire. Especially in a time where a lot of folks who have the kind of platform that she had aren't advocating for people who don't have a lot, you know. Some are and some aren't. And the people who do, you know, it's good to call that out. Like, she was an amazing singer and a great songwriter, but she was an even better human being. We'll be right back. This is Free. Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. She's a singer, songwriter, banjo player, and fiddler. She's also the artistic director of the Silk Road Ensemble and started her career playing music from the black string band tradition, dating back to slave times, with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which she co-founded. You were on the Henry Louis Gates show Finding Your Roots. Yes. Did you learn more about parts of your ancestry that you had no idea about that were – that changed your idea of who you are and where you're from? It didn't change it. It just, like, confirmed some things, you know? It kind of confirmed for me that I'm southern to the bone, you know what I mean? It's like there was no going back across the ocean. It's just like my folks have been here for a long time, and they've been poor for a really long time. The white people, the black people, everybody was poor, you know? And I think that's really important. I embrace that not because I romanticize it because their lives were very hard, but it's really important to understand how many people were living in poverty and are still living in poverty. Let's not forget. There's still people who are poor. There's still people who are enslaved all around the world. There's people who are being killed, right? This is not a special country, but it's important, especially the music that I play and the stories that I tell. It's like this is my job because Miami. My ancestors didn't have nothing, you know? So I'm here with this immense privilege, so I need to tell their stories. Because the thing is about poor people is that what we have of them, and this is what I also remind people, no matter what color you are, when your relatives didn't have very much, it's hard to find out things about them. And most of the records are negative. Court cases, runaway ads, right? These are negative sources, so you have to figure out how do you. Find the positive in that. So for me, I'm like, these people survived on next to nothing so that I can sit here and have this amazing conversation with you with all this technology, you know? It's like somebody said to me, like, how do you have hope? And I'm like, how can I not have hope? It's an absolute privilege to sit here. What right do I have to not have hope when I don't have to worry about this being bombed on my head, right? I don't have to worry about starving. I don't have to. Not yet, right? We're situated in this place, but it makes us more responsible to carry the hope for people who can't right now because they're so busy trying to survive, you know? So what right do we have not to have hope? I'm not saying I'm a Pollyanna because I don't have a lot of faith in humanity, but I have a faith in humans, you know? It's different. So, yeah, sorry. I'm just really like. It's really hard to know how to live right now. Like the world. It feels like the world is burning down around us. Like, how do we how do we carry that? And how do we how do we carry that to make change? And, you know, that's the question, right? And so art is supposed to do something, you know, so that people want to create change that can help people, you know? So that's all I'm trying to do. Well, I think this is the moment to hear your song. Hope is the thing with feathers, which is the title track of your new album. It's an Emily Dickinson poem. That you set to music. Can I assume that the reason why you set this to music is everything that you just said about the necessity of having hope in a time when it's difficult to have hope? Yeah, I mean, it's it is obviously one of her most famous poems. You know, it's got a history. People have said it. I'm a I'm a classical singer by training, so I'm used to poems being set by different people. So, you know, Alice Randall wrote a song with the first line as the inspiration, you know, so I'm in good company. But I just I didn't want to write a song. I just wanted to set her words because they're perfect, you know? Well, let's hear it. This is Rhiannon Giddens, the title track of her new album. Hope is the thing with feathers. Hope is the thing with feathers, perches in the soul, sings the tune without the words, never stops at all, never stops at all. It is in the gale is heard. So must be the storm that could have bashed the little bird that kept so many warm, that kept so many warm. That's the title track. That's the title track of Rhiannon Giddens' new album, Hope is the thing with feathers. Rhiannon Giddens, it has been such a pleasure to have you back on our show and to hear you sing. I love your voice so much and your playing to you. But you are one of a kind. Thanks for having me. It was really, really nice talking to you. Rhiannon Giddens' new album is called Hope is the thing with feathers. High on a mountain wind blowing free Thinking about the days that used to be High on a mountain standing all alone Wondering where the years of my life have flown Tomorrow on Fresh Air, cyber scams. Andy Greenberg from Wired Magazine will tell us about a cyber crime operation in Southeast Asia that traps computer engineers into participating in schemes that defraud victims around the world of billions of dollars. We'll also talk about cyber attacks on American infrastructure and a scam involving our show. I hope you'll join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Sam Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers and Ray Bolden. Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Anna Baumann, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross. Has my memory turned, oh, how my heart did yearn For you and the days that used to be here High on the mountain, wind blowin' free Thinking about the days that used to be here High on the mountain, standing all alone Wondering where the years of my life had flown ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪