15th Annual Anne and Loren Kieve Lecture

This is an Archive of a Past Event

there is no Other: musical routes to racial justice

The Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and Stanford Live present the 15th Annual Anne and Loren Kieve Distinguished Lecture and Demonstration with multi-instrumentalist and musicologist Rhiannon Giddens. Giddens is a founding member of the Grammy-winning American roots band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a 2017 MacArthur Genius Award recipient and a regular on CMT’s Nashville.


Giddens’ brilliant work traces the 19th century evolution of the banjo from its West African origins and its subsequent travels among black and white communities within the U.S. and ultimately across the globe. She unmasks the little-known, painful history of black erasure in grassroots “American” music and cultures, guiding audiences to think about music in racialized terms.

In her latest album, there is no Other, Giddens incorporates Arabic and Middle Eastern traditions in collaboration with Italian jazz multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, merging parallel histories of marginalization in a transnational context.

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