Rhiannon Giddens Instagram – Black Banjo Renaissance #20
Hannah Mayree and the Black Banjo Reclamation Project @hannah_mayree @black.banjo.reclamation
The banjo spent many years being a center of spirituality for enslaved people of the African diaspora; throughout the years of minstrelsy and erasure, that connection has flowed underground like a unknown river, waiting for us to rediscover it – and we are.
Hannah Mayree formed the Black Banjo Reclamation Project to get as many banjos in black hands as possible.
In Hannah’s own words (from an interview with Afropop):
“It goes back to what I was speaking on. And I am very much still on a journey with this. The banjo is taking me on a journey; it’s taking my local community on a journey. I’m just very excited to see where it takes us. The pain and trauma I was talking about, I think, is the pain of separation. It’s a very common emotion experienced by African-American people, expressed in different ways, when you lose trust in what you see and learn to question everything. I did not personally grow up knowing the banjo has its roots in the Black community. It’s bad enough what has happened all over the world to Black folks from health disparity, food apartheid, to prisons. For me to add “music” on top of that? Music is here to heal us! | Posted on 08/Mar/2024 00:29:40
