Rhiannon Giddens: "At the Purchaser's Option" | Come Hear North Carolina In The Water Concert

The roots of American music run deep in North Carolina, and the diversity of our music mirrors the diversity of our musicians’ creative homes. In the Water is a special limited video series for the 2019 North Carolina Year of Music that highlights the symbolic and literal places that shape the sounds and souls of North Carolina musicians. Each episode of In The Water features a North Carolina musician performing a unique location across the state.

Greensboro, North Carolina’s Rhiannon Giddens took the Come Hear North Carolina team across the state to Wilmington - to share the too-often-forgotten history of the Wilmington insurrection of 1898. The tragic events of that year saw a white supremacist mob take over the city of Wilmington, burn and destroy African American-owned businesses and take an untold number of African American lives. Before the insurrection, Wilmington was considered to be one of the South’s great examples of a city coming together in Reconstruction.

Her performance, filmed at the headquarters of Cucalorus arts festival, features the song "At The Purchasers Option."

Rhiannon Giddens is a Macarthur Genius Award recipient and the Grammy Award-winning co-founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Giddens also received the inaugural Legacy of Americana Award at the Americana Honors and Awards in Nashville this year, was featured prominently in Ken Burns’ Country Music documentary series and is a current Grammy nominee in the Best American Roots Performance category for her collaboration with the Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, as well as in the Best American Roots Song category for her work in the group Our Native Daughters. Giddens’ In The Water session follows performances from The Mountain Goats, Mary Lattimore and Vanessa Ferguson at unique and meaningful locations throughout the state.

Special thanks to Dan Brawley, Rachel Taylor and Cucalorus.

Find the full concert at www.ComeHearNC.com/InTheWater.