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On her own and as a member of the
Carolina Chocolate Drops,
Rhiannon Giddens has explored the depths of folk music, specializing in how old-timey songs and forms still have resonance in the modern world.
Giddens' music functions as a commentary upon and expansion of the known folk songbook. Her aesthetic made the
Carolina Chocolate Drops' two albums for Nonesuch in the early 2010s seem startling and fresh, but not long after the 2012 release of
Leaving Eden, she went solo.
Tomorrow Is My Turn, her 2015 solo album, found
Giddens singing 20th century standards and was the first hint of how adventurous her solo career would be. In short order, she released
Freedom Highway -- a 2017 album largely comprised of original compositions -- and
There Is No Other, a 2019 collaboration with Francesco Turrisi that made her artistic sensibility explicit: there is no such thing as "other" in music, it's a place where all cultures are unified.
Raised in Piedmont, North Carolina,
Giddens studied opera at the Oberlin Conservatory before relocating back home, where she became immersed in the rural musical traditions of that region. A chance meeting with future bandmates
Justin Robinson and
Dom Flemons at the 2005 Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, North Carolina, resulted in the formation of their first folk project, Sankofa Strings. Originally an outlet to perform various early African-American musical styles like blues, country, hot string jazz, and Caribbean, the bandmembers ended up learning much of their early repertoire from legendary old-time fiddler
Joe Thompson. Adopting the name
the Carolina Chocolate Drops, they issued four eclectic and well-respected albums before signing with Nonesuch Records to release their wildly successful 2010 breakthrough album.
Following the success of
Genuine Negro Jig, the band continued to tour and record with an ever-evolving lineup that remained centered around
Giddens' powerful vocals and fiddle/banjo playing. Drafted by producer
T-Bone Burnett to perform solo at the 2013
Another Day, Another Time concert (celebrating the musical era of the film
Inside Llewyn Davis) in New York, she gave a showstopping performance of the
Odetta classic "Waterboy," which was widely considered the highlight of the evening. Just a few months later in early 2014, she again worked with
Burnett on the collaborative
New Basement Tapes recording project, which featured
Elvis Costello,
Jim James (
My Morning Jacket),
Marcus Mumford (
Mumford & Sons), and
Taylor Goldsmith (
Dawes) writing new music to recently discovered
Bob Dylan lyrics.
Giddens' own
Burnett-produced solo debut,
Tomorrow Is My Turn, was released a year later in February 2015. At the end of the year, she issued an EP called
Factory Girl, which was culled from the same sessions as
Tomorrow Is My Turn; its title track received a Grammy nomination for Best American Roots Performance in 2017, while the EP itself was nominated for Best Folk Album. She released her second solo album,
Freedom Highway, which she co-produced with
Dirk Powell, in February 2017.
Giddens received a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship in October of that year.
Giddens formed
Our Native Daughters with fellow singer/songwriters
Leyla McCalla,
Allison Russell, and
Amythyst Kiah; the collective released
Songs of Our Native Daughters in February 2019. That year,
Giddens also teamed with Italian jazz musician Francesco Turrisi for
There Is No Other, an album designed to emphasize connections between cultures. The duo earned a Grammy nomination for the track "I'm on My Way."
Giddens and
Turrisi reunited for 2021's Grammy-nominated
They're Calling Me Home, an album informed by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. ~ Timothy Monger