Welcome to another episode of Lurie Breaks It Down, a podcast where we dig deeply to connect the dots on the issues that shape our world.

I'm Lurie Daniel Favors, author, activist, attorney, and the host of the Lurie Daniel Favors show on Sirius X-X-M's Urban View, Channel 126. If you like what you're about to hear, go ahead and give us five stars and then tell everybody that you know. And if you don't like it, just, child, keep it to yourself and pray our strength. Okay? Thank you so much.

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June is Black Music Month, and we are living in a time when the pop culture wars center

rather ridiculous questions like who created country music, black people, or who created rock

and roll, also black people. But when you're living in an era where the leadership of the country

would rather erase black people as cultural contributors than

acknowledge the significance of the roles that we have played in the development of culture

stemming from the American reality, it's important that we tell our own stories and preserve our

own histories on our own terms. My conversation with Rianan Giddens on my serious XM radio show

was just one small contribution to the very necessary retelling and preserving of that history.

Let's take a listen.

She has made a singular iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music with its miles deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities into just about every single field imaginable.

She is a two-time Grammy Award-winning singer and multi-instrumentalist,

a MacArthur, Genius Grant recipient, Pulitzer Prize winner,

and a composer of opera, ballet, and film.

And she is here today, in Gushin of her album,

What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow, which is out right now, produced by

Giddens and Joseph Jobass Dijeret. I hope I pronounced that correctly. She will correct me if I did not, but this album features Giddens on banjo, Robinson on Fiddle, and with a duo playing 18 of their favorite North Carolina tunes. Riannon Giddens, it's a real pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you for having me.

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