A white banjo player.
Banjo has given me hope, happiness and human connection. In my darkest times, it’s given me a way back to life and into community. It’s put food on my table. It’s made me a guest at places I arrive a stranger. It’s allowed me to communicate without using words. Banjo has given me everything and asked nothing in return.
But I do hear it asking. Deep down in my gut I know something's not right. My quietest part knows that in the history of this instrument there are horrors and gravest wrongdoings.
Many are surprised to learn that enslaved Black people brought the banjo to America. Banjo music is Black music. Human beings were sold and purchased and their music was appropriated. Black-face minstrel shows, theft, and forgetting rendered the Banjo not a Black instrument in cultural consciousness, but the symbol of white, poor, rural authenticity. This details of this history are beyond my scope of knowledge. Some links are below to more resources.
Banjo music didn’t just wind up at my door. Banjo wasn’t placed on my table by a disembodied gloved hand. My musical life has been made possible by Black artists.
I have never had to pay one penny to Black artists or to descendants of the Black banjoists whose music, techniques and instrumentation I replicate. I want to be part of the end of a cycle of stealing, of taking without recognizing, and of receiving without giving back. For this reason, I am donating half of my performance fees, tips, and record sales to The Black Banjo Reclamation Project.
The Black Banjo Reclamation Project is led by an Oakland-based Black-Banjoist named Hannah Mayree. The focus of their project is “to return instruments of African origin to the descendants of their original makers.” They lead banjo builds and workshops for people of African descent to reclaim this ancestral instrument in the present day. Participants of workshops build and receive banjos. This reception of traditional instrument and knowledge is a form of reparations.
I am trying to raise $2,000 by May to help fund BBRP's 2022 builds:
Sacramento Weekend Banjo Build April 30 - May 1
Port Townsend Banjo Crafter Fellowship, Last week of June
Chicago Banjo Build, mid-July through mid-August
This work is transformational at the root. It heals the past while generating future possibilities. It moves beyond the bounds of time and space. Banjoists are cosmonauts, or banjoists are gardeners- pulling out rotted roots and nourishing the strong ones. Encouraging new life. It is restoration.
Will you please help me raise $2000 for The Black Banjo Reclamation Project? No donation is too small.
WAYS TO DONATE:
Donations to Black Banjo Reclamation Project are tax deductible. I can get you a tax receipt if you need.
I am one in the larger BBRP support team. We are mostly white banjo players and builders. We are working to raise these funds all over the country and change the way we interact with this instrument.
I have faith this fundraising is an action which conforms to will of my spiritual guides and ancestors. Supporting BBRP is a way to live like the world is already a better world for all. Here too is an opportunity for you to support healing, and to direct funds and power back to the Black traditional music community.
Thank you for taking the time to read my newsletters. Also thanks to Bochay Drum for pointing me to this project. I am healthy and living well in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. I have taken a break from performing. Being involved with this project helps me connect to the true purpose of my work as a musician and writer. More will be revealed. Thanks for coming along with me.
Springtime love,
-Melanie Beth Curran
Recommended:
If you want do one-on-one anti-racism work with a counselor, please check out this project:
Holistic Resistance. Facilitator Chelsea Meney is amazing. They help facilitate the BBRP support team meetings.
If you'd like to play the banjo, check out Sule Greg Wilson's banjo instructional books. He is another facilitator at Black Banjo Reclamation Project.
Further reading/listening about Black Banjo History
Black Musicians' Quest to Return Banjo to Its African Roots
How Rhiannon Giddens Reconstructs Black Pain With The Banjo
Black History of The Banjo
Books:
Hoedowns, Reels, and Frolics by Phil Jamison
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
