Category: Rhiannon Giddens

  • Affrilachia

    A diagram of the major themes of country music. Country music may seem like the whitest of music genres, and has even been called “The White Man’s Blues.” Songs like Merle Haggard’s “I’m a White Boy” certainly advance that narrative. But is that narrative reliable? It’s true that some of the major themes of country…

  • The Appropriation of Cultures

    Listen to a wonderful live reading of Percival Everett’s 1996 short story “The Appropriation of Cultures”: This is the song, “Dixie,” that Everett’s character Daniel sings. It was written in 1859, and was adopted, with additional lyrics, as the national anthem of the Confederacy. Perhaps the way that Daniel sings “Dixie” sounded something like jazz…