By Stephen Kallo, Kimberly Junod for NPR
Rhiannon Giddens added to her impressive list of accomplishments earlier this year, when the Grammy Award winner and MacArthur Fellow won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in music as co-composer for the opera, Omar.
The highly decorated singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, composer and author is also the host of My Music with Rhiannon Giddens on PBS, and her podcast with New York Public Radio, Aria Code, is in its fourth season. The relentlessly busy Giddens joins us to talk about her latest album, You’re the One. It’s a departure from her earlier material and a chance to expand her sonic palette. The record incorporates jazz, blues, Cajun and rock elements, and it’s also her first album to feature all original compositions.
In this session, Giddens talks about why she wanted to switch gears with You’re the One, winning the Pulitzer Prize, her second children’s book, We Could Fly, and how she finds the time to do “all of the things.”