And as important as it is for Beyonce to be the first black woman to win this in 26 years, she truly shares this win with the historical banjo revival artist, Rhiannon Giddens. She's won the MacArthur genius grants and two Pulitzers for her significant intellectual work in string music theory, discoveries in country music history, poetic lyricism, violin composition, her multiple supergroups, is the director of Yo-yo Ma's Silkroad music foundation, etc.
She is THE behemoth of historically informed folk music.
Rhiannons music comes from an interplay with archival research into the darkest history of minstrel culture, the banjo was invented for slaves in blackface to play "stupid" "low" music while entertaining whites. Minstrel shows and instruments like banjo and are the historical precedent of what later became country and bluegrass, these are genres invented by slaves to make plantation labor bearable.
Few musical instruments are more deeply connected to the American experience than the banjo.... Learn more
Rhiannon takes our dark and painful and joyful and beautiful music history of negro jigs and transformatively reclaims it into not only an intellectual interest but harnesses its power with a gleefully expressive, joyful enthusiasm!!
No she doesn't want her part on Cowboy Carter to be credited. Rhiannon has earned serious awards much more prestigous and meaningful than her Grammys were, but to have her work also recognized in the greater pop culture as a collaborative effort between two black women powerhouses is a REALLY powerful moment.
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