Pop superstar Beyoncé released "Texas Hold 'Em" a few weeks ago and it features an instrument that she had never emphasized before. This hit song, on her new (and hugely popular) Cowboy Carter album, ...

Beyonce’s hit “Texas Hold ’Em” opens with a beat seldom heard on hip-hop tracks: the unmistakable clip-clop of a four-stringed clawhammer banjo. It comes via folk icon Rhiannon Giddens, who was ...

Go behind the scenes with Our Native Daughters as they discuss the origins of their debut album and explore the power of the banjo as a distinctly African American instrument. "Songs of Our Native ...

Introduction: Griots of piedmont North Carolina and portrait of songster Will Baldwin -- Signifying at the crossroads : African-American traditions of the folk banjo -- The ritual of minstrelsy : some ...

Sascha Paladino’s documentary Throw Down Your Heart was screened in Toronto last weekend as part of Luminato, a festival of arts and creativity. The movie follows the world famous Banjo player, Bela ...

How African instruments, rhythms, and innovators shaped the genre long before it became a cultural symbol of the American South. Long before country music became a billion-dollar cultural force, its ...