Rhiannon Giddens: podcast appearances and interviews

Rhiannon Giddens, born on February 21, 1977, is an American musician, actress, and author recognized for her eclectic folk music. She is a founding member of the Grammy-winning group Carolina Chocolate Drops, where she served as the lead singer and played fiddle and banjo. Giddens hails from Greensboro, North Carolina, and has released five solo albums including Tomorrow Is My Turn in 2015, Freedom Highway in 2017, and You're the One in 2023. She also collaborated with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi on the albums There Is No Other and They’re Calling Me Home, both released in 2021. Her work is documented in the Smithsonian Folkways collection titled Just Around The Bend: Survival and Revival in Southern Banjo Styles, which captures Mike Seeger’s final trip through Appalachia in 2009. Giddens participated in the 2014 project The New Basement Tapes, produced by T Bone Burnett, which set recently discovered Bob Dylan lyrics to new music, resulting in the album Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes that reached the Billboard top 40. She contributed to the song Mountain Hymn for the video game Red Dead Redemption 2. In 2023, the opera Omar, co-written by Giddens and Michael Abels, received the Pulitzer Prize for Music.