The Banjo Lesson 🪕

Beyonce, Banjos, and the power of the archive

Did you know that I wanted to be an art curator? It is what I went to grad school for, right out of college in 2007. I wanted to wear turtlenecks and hold forth about African American art. Part of that desire was born out of my workstudy at the Hampton University Museum in undergrad. I basically grew up in libraries, and the Hampton Museum was the library during my mom's time there in the 80s, so it makes sense that it felt like home. 

One of the gem's of Hampton's collection is Henry Ossawa Tanner's "The Banjo Lesson" (1893), which hangs in the Hampton University Museum's upstairs gallery. It is huge, and singular. Tanner's impressionistic style renders a beautiful scene of an elderly Black man sitting in a chair teaching a young child how to play the banjo. 

Sitting with this painting calls up so many thoughts and feelings for me, but the three that standout most are: 

1. Awe at the skill of Tanner, and what he was trying to communicate about Black people via fine art at a time when society actively worked to crush the humanity African Americans;

2. A warm sense of nostalgia, thinking about when my own grandfather taught me how to write at the age of five, patiently guiding my little hands on the pen and paper; and 

3. The power of the archive

Anyone who has worked in corporate America knows that the best way to protect your neck is to document everything. The Banjo Lesson is documentation, reminding us 130 years into the future how an instrument that we now associate with "country music" and rural whiteness was actually a part of everyday Black life and music culture. People can come to this artwork again and again to learn from it.

My own preferred methods of documentation are photography and personal essays, but I am always amazed at the persistence of ephemeral modes of transmitting knowledge, and how powerful they can be across generations, i.e. music, dance, food and language. A medley from hundreds of years in the past can time travel because communities steward its memory by teaching it generation after generation. The same with certain dance styles or ritual traditions. In some ways, I think these methods of archiving are more durable because they cannot be burned or destroyed. People will always find ways to reflect their lives through art.

When Beyonce released her two country singles the night of the Super Bowl, people extolled her return to country roots. Her pivot is only accelerating change in the country industry, and has pushed curious listeners to dive into the archive of Black country artists like banjoist Rhiannon Giddens (who plays on Beyonce’s ‘Texas Hold’em’) and my fave Tanner Adell, driving growth in their streams according to Billboard. This spotlight on country music is also illuminating the African origins of the banjo. Beyonce’s country experiment even reminded me that the banjo I know best resides in my favorite archive at Hampton 🪕

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What I'm Reading/Watching/Listening To

• Tressie McMillan Cottom’s previous writing about race and country music, blondeness, and how the genre is shifting offers valuable context for this moment

• Solange in Harper's Bazaar

• Local DC NPR station WAMU 88.5 reinstates weekly magazine archives after trying to delete following layoffs (writers, always PDF your essays when they are printed at these large publications, everything is shutting down willy nilly and you need your clips!)

• TBR: Rest is Not Resistance, and That is OK: On Cancer, Grief, & Audre Lorde

• This Lil Jon/Rolling Stone interview about his new Meditation Album is sweet

• This essay on what's really behind that Alabama IVF Ruling

• Now I loved the movie American Fiction, but this Defector criticism is making some point.

This Amapiano Mix is a vibe, especially if you are trying to get in the zone at work:

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Photos of the Week

I'm doing a photosession soon at a local church, and I've been practicing getting back comfortable with my digital camera. Please enjoy these test shots, I'm working on lighting, depth of field and silhouettes.