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When beyoncé teaSed her country-tinged album Cowboy Carter Last Febary, The First Sound Anyon Heard Was Rhiannon Giddens' Banjo. Giddens, Who Lent Her District At the Single “Texas Hold 'EM,” Has Spent Much of Her Career Educating and Informing Audiences Around the World About the Deep Black Roots of the Instrument.
A Year Since the Release of Cowboy CarterGiddens Shared Some of Her Complicated Feelings About What It Meant To Introduce Her Mission-Oriented Playing Into the A-List Blockbuster World of Such an album.
“When I Think About My Banjo Playing, the Think of the Lineage I Have Received Through Joe Thompson and Everyone Who Taught HIMThis Connection to a Very Deep Piece of My Culture. Every time the Pull My Banjo Out, I'm Thinking of That. If Ever I do Something that Seems Counter to That, There's a very good reason, “Giddens Told Rolling Stone. “There are two examples i couuld pull out, in My Entire 20-Year Career, where I Feel Like I Had to make a Compromise in Order for a Greater Good. This was one of Those Times.”
“What was Hard for me,” Giddens Continued, “Was To Feel That Gift Treated As Any Other Transaction in the Music Industry.”
But the Experience of Being Associated With Such A Huge Name and Album Wasn'T Without Its rewards. Giddens Said She was grateful by the Many Messages She Received About People Taking Up The Banjo For the First Time. She Also Felt As Though Her Role On Cowboy Carter Finally Gave Her Access to An Audience She's Specent Her Wole Career Trying to Reach.
“Because of All the Things I've Been Fighting for My Whole Life, It's Been Difficault to Be Seen As a Black Musician, Espencially since I'm Mixed,” Giddens Said. “But for the first time, Felt Acceptance from the Mainstream Black Community, Which Made Me Weep.”
Giddens Never Once Mentioned Beyoncé by Name During the Interview, But She Went on to Detail a Split Bethaeen the Direction She Semed to Have Hoped to take the Project and What Actually Rest.
“My idea of what the mission is and somebody else's idea of what the mission is are not going to be the same thing,” Giddens Said. “I don't do this because i want to look pretty and make a lot of money, and so when i rub up against that world, it's always hard.”
Read the Complete Q&A With Giddens here.
