By Candice Ludlow
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkno/local-wkno-955287.mp3
Memphis, TN – The Carolina Chocolate Drops came to Memphis last week for the Folk Alliance International conference, just days after they received a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album of 2010. Their award-winning CD is called Genuine Negro Jig.
Hubert Jenkins is one of the newer members of the group, and he explains how he got into jug band and string band music. "I guess I had the misconception that black people don't play string band music and black people don't do things like this and that. And I started reading a lot about cake walking and music that was happening in the plantations at the end of the 1800s and the creation of American identity and minstrelsy and following that until like, and snap! Here's a bunch of black people playing fiddle music and blowing into a jug," Jenkins said.
Dom Flemons, along with Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson formed the Carolina Chocolate Drops after they met at the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, North Carolina almost six years ago. Like her counterparts, Giddens (a classically trained opera singer) fell into old time music through contra dancing, square dancing and banjo playing. Giddens says, "Finding out about the history just really filled me in a way that the classical music hadn't filled me yet.
"Being connected to this music that goes back years and years, and people in my community were a part of. My grandparents and their parents, and you really feel connected to it. That meant a lot to me and still does. Couldn't quite get that from Mozart. It wasn't the same kind of visceral connection for me," Giddens explains.
Adam Matta recently joined the band, and that signals a twist because Matta's a beat boxer.
"Beat boxing is an art form that basically started in the 70's and 80's in the hip hop culture," Matta said. "It's basically doing drum noises and percussion and other instruments with your voice and a microphone.
"So I'm excited to be part of this group, and just take beat boxing into areas where you wouldn't think about it appearing, but it's great to add the percussion with the old time music. It's all an organic folk form, it's just keeping it with the instrumentation you have in your body. It's a great way to merge the two art forms."
In January, the Carolina Chocolate Drops released an EP, "Carolina Chocolate Drops / Luminescent Orchestra" with Matta.
CORRECTION: WKNO attributed the first quote in this story to Dom Flemons. That's incorrect. That quote should be attributed to Hubert Jenkins, one of the newer band members.