RHIANNON GIDDENS

I had this dream like years ago. I had this dream - I wanted to be in an all-black string band.

I grew up listening to country music. I got into traditional stuff later, but I listened to the commercial stuff of the '90s, especially the women who were so strong, like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Kathy Mattea. It's a great art form.

There was such hostility to the idea of a banjo being a black instrument. It was co-opted by this white supremacist notion that old-time music was the inheritance of white America.

The best part of a MacArthur is having some pressure taken off from touring relentlessly.

There is a black folk music audience. They're just very small.

Each song has its own way that it likes to be done, but it can be more than one way. If you tap into it, you can feel it.

I'm not gonna force something or fake something to try to get more black people at my shows. I'm not gonna do some big hip-hop crossover.

I really got into Gaelic music and the whole sound of it, and I got to go to Scotland.

Othering people is something that humans have done for ever.

Know thy history. Let it horrify you; let it inspire you.

I have to continue to work, and I have to be touring, because that's how I earn a living.

It's kind of remarkable, everything that's happened to me. It's been such a whirlwind, but in a good way.

The question is not how do we get diversity into bluegrass, but how do we get diversity back into bluegrass?

I wouldn't be out here touring constantly if I didn't hope that my music was going to do something to somebody.

I love the U.K. folk scene. In the States, nobody knows what to do with me. There's still a very narrow definition of Americana.

I'm really interested in history and when I looked into the settlers who came to my home state, North Carolina, I found that the largest settlement of Hebridean islanders outside of Scotland was right there in North Carolina.

When you sit at the feet of an elder, it changes you.

I think that we definitely want to experiment, and if there's a hip-hop song that we like, we'll cover it. We don't want to be one of those bands that's like, you know, you know - Carolina Chocolate Drops does hip-hop. I mean, just know - you know, if it naturally works itself in, you know, cool.

Nobody can know what their legacy is going to be, you know?

I'm a North Carolina native. Grew up in North Carolina.

So my mom's folks are from one side of Greensboro - and, you know, outside of Greensboro. And my dad's folks, the white side, is from another very small town outside of Greensboro. So both sides are coming from the country.

I love singing opera, but the world surrounding it is not me. I want to be barefoot. I want to be in control of my own career. I want to put on a show. In the opera world, you wait for people to call you until you get to a certain level. In the folk world, it's a lot easier to have control from the beginning.

I play a replica of a banjo from the 1950s. It was the first commercial-style banjo in the United States so it's the first one that white people played.

I keep starting supergroups, writing ballets and things like that.

You have to find the balance of figuring out how can I be effective? How can I use my platform for good, you know, without jeopardizing everything so that I don't have that platform anymore.