

Rhiannon Giddens with Brian Stokes Mitchell
Episode 2 | 26mVideo has Closed Captions
Musician Rhiannon Giddens and stage actor Brian Stokes Mitchell discuss theater and music.
Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens and Tony Award winner Brian Stokes Mitchell sit down for a candid discussion about theater and music. The two connect over the power of music, and how genres may be universally adapted and “played with” by artists. Mitchell also examines the impact of the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown, particularly as a catalyst for change for Black artists.
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Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback

Rhiannon Giddens with Brian Stokes Mitchell
Episode 2 | 26mVideo has Closed Captions
Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens and Tony Award winner Brian Stokes Mitchell sit down for a candid discussion about theater and music. The two connect over the power of music, and how genres may be universally adapted and “played with” by artists. Mitchell also examines the impact of the 2020 COVID-19 shutdown, particularly as a catalyst for change for Black artists.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship♪♪ -Tonight on "PBS Arts Talk"... Hello.
-Finally.
-God, I know.
-Finally.
-...one of the most beloved stars of American theater, Brian Stokes Mitchell.
-How are you?
-I'm excellent.
How are you?
-Yeah.
I'm good.
-He sits down with Grammy- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens.
-The spaces, that's where artists play.
Artists play in the spaces.
-Always in the spaces.
-Yeah.
-On this edition of "PBS Arts Talk."
♪♪ -I'm just, like, so happy to be sitting here chatting with you.
-Me too, you.
We have much in common.
-We do.
We do.
Yes, absolutely.
Let's go ahead and, you know, elephant in the room.
Let's start with 2016.
-Yes.
-Which is where we did meet very, very briefly.
-Yes, we did.
-Very briefly, but we did not get to share a stage.
Talking about, just to set this up for people who may or may not know, the musical "Shuffle Along: Or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and Everything that Followed," which has got to be the longest title of any musical ever.
-And I give you kudos for remembering the whole thing.
-Oh, thank you very much.
-I can't.
[ Both laugh ] -So which is, of course, a show about a show about an actual show called "Shuffle Along" that, you know, was out in 1921.
It brought jazz to Broadway.
It was the first, like, bona fide smash hit with an all-Black cast, black creative cast.
It was a really big deal.
-In 1921, the little show that could opened in New York City.
Had everything going against it, yet changed Broadway forever.
The name of the show -- "Shuffle Along."
-You were sharing the stage with Audra McDonald, Billy Porter, all choreographed by Savion Glover.
I mean, it was like the most spectacular thing I'd ever seen.
And I wanted to know, first of all, you know, what drew you to the show?
-I actually knew about "Shuffle Along" because I'm kind of a music theater and a theater nerd.
-Yeah.
-Because of that, I was familiar with it, but I thought it was a really valuable thing to tell this story and also kind of resurrect these people that have been forgotten to history and their contribution and what this show meant to Broadway, to theater, to pop music, to music, to entertainment.
It was a really worthy story to tell.
-Well, you know, that brings me to my intersection with the show, which was, you know, Audra McDonald had -- was adding to her family.
And so they hired me to step into her shoes, which okay, to do the part that she was doing because nobody can wear Audra McDonald's shoes because she's amazing.
So I came and I watched so many of the shows, so many.
I was just so excited because I'm also, you know, a history buff and I was just so, like, excited to be part of something, you know, like this.
And then the news came that it was going to be closed.
-Yeah.
-And I went to that show that night.
It was like after the news came out.
The grief.
-Oh!
-Oh, my gosh.
You could just feel it in the theater.
You know?
-Yes.
-And it just brings me to these pieces that we -- that we do because they're a part of a culture... [Chuckles] that has not been historically valued, represented.
-Yes.
-Remembered.
Take your pick.
-Honored.
-And I know that you in your work, you know, "Ragtime"... -♪ Sarah, my life has changed ♪ ♪ Sarah, I miss you so ♪ -"King Hedley II."
-"King Hedley."
Yes.
-Life, love gotta mean something.
If it don't mean that, what do it mean?
I'm talking about that's my baby.
-You have, you know, engaged with these works that are really representing and holding, you know, race representation, dealing with this history, and "Shuffle Along" was, like, squarely in the middle of that.
When you're in a show like that with a group like that, telling a history like that, is that different from your, you know -- I don't know -- "The Music Man" or, you know, something that is a wonderful show, but it doesn't have that same kind of cultural connection?
-Yeah, it's not just about entertaining an audience.
It's about educating them.
It's about enlightening them.
It's a better word than educate.
Education sounds so boring.
It's more about enlightening them and it's very much what you've been doing your entire life, is kind of enlightening people to, "Oh, no, this is what music is and these are what the roots come from," and this is, you know, all of those connections that you're making that our history does not teach us.
-Right.
-And it was great to be to be a part of a project like that and to be able to to sing those people.
♪♪ -♪ Those Broadway blues ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] -There's a lot of stereotypes, we'll say, when it comes to Broadway... -Yes.
-...when it comes to Broadway singing.
-Yes.
-And I would love to kind of dig into it a little bit.
-Ooh, love it.
-First of all, where does your -- the idea of, you know, more of a jazz phrasing.
You know, where did that start for you?
Like, how did you, like, conceive of your -- your identity as a singer?
How did that start to come about?
-I don't know that I ever conceived of it.
It's kind of almost conceived me.
-Aha!
Gotcha, gotcha.
-You know?
My -- My dad was a jazz -- jazz head, always.
So I remember waking up every Saturday and Sunday morning.
He would wake up very early and I would wake up -- we'd be up at 4:00 in the morning, 5:00 in the morning, and he would be playing jazz albums like Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughan and Count Basie and anybody that was especially from the '40s, you know, jazz era.
That's -- Because that was his era.
I had been singing before I'd been talking, as far as I know.
And then I started playing music when I was 6 years old.
I was fascinated by the keyboard because, depending on what little notes I pressed, it made me feel a certain way.
And I realized, "Ooh, that makes me feel happy.
Ooh, that makes me feel a little sad.
Ooh, that one's complicated.
That sounds like somebody's friendly, but really not."
And it was -- That's kind of how I program my brain.
And I was able to listen to music, and I was -- had a, I guess, a great ear.
I could listen to things usually three times, and I would be able to sit down and play it.
I also learned to read notes at the same time, but I found notes kind of, like, boring and slow.
And it was too, yes, angular and too, you know, much, "It's about this and it's about the rhythm, it's -- it's like --" no, that's not what music is to me.
Music is about all of this, you know, exploring these different energies in these different things.
That's what jazz is.
-Yes.
-So, as I've continued to study music, because it's like I'm just -- I feel like I'm a lifelong student, you know?
-I know the feeling.
[ Laughs ] -Yep.
I do, too.
Which I love, because you never get tired.
-Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
-Yeah, it is.
And there's always something new to learn, and somebody else, a new country, a new, you know, instrument, a new -- Oh, it's just like -- That's heaven on a stick to me.
[ Both laugh ] I just love it.
-I'm -- I'm stealing that phrase.
Yeah.
[ Both laugh ] -But you know, what's so interesting to me is, hearing you talk about it -- I know somebody -- I recently worked with somebody who sees colors... -Yeah!
Oh.
-..when they hear and -- -Synesthesia!
I'm fascinated by synesthesia.
That's what it's called.
-Yeah!
And so, hearing you talk, like, you're not saying that you see colors, but it feels like it's on the same -- it's on the same page... -It is.
-...because you, like -- you're 6 years old and you hear the chord and you feel something, that's -- that's got to be the same, you know -- at least the same ballpark.
You know what I mean?
-Yeah.
Yes.
-You're just -- you're just feeling it, and you don't see the color, but you feel it in a different way, but you're still feeling something.
-Yes.
It is.
And that's why I'm fascinated with synesthesia, which is when people confuse, mix -- you know, you smell a sight or you hear a taste.
When I hear strings, they're grass green to me.
When I hear a bassoon, it's what a tree sounds like.
-Wow.
-You know, if a tree could make a sound, it would sound like a bassoon.
-Very three-dimensional.
-Yes.
So, when I sat down at the piano, doing that, I realized that it was also the same thing.
I was -- It was about the energy that the sound puts together.
And so I became fascinated with that.
Now, getting back to your original question, 35 minutes ago -- -[ Laughs ] -So, musical theater, I was raised in... ♪ There's a bright, golden haze on the meadow ♪ ♪ There's a bright, gol-- ♪ One and three, and you're singing on the beat.
-Right.
-And you're singing, you know, there.
-Mm-hmm.
-So I decided, later on, to start loosening that up, kind of, with the jazz, 'cause it felt better.
It felt more natural, it felt more organic.
-Yeah.
-And there's, like -- I like to say, you know, it's the spaces.
That's where artists play.
Artists play in the spaces.
-Always in the spaces.
-Yeah, exactly.
-The edges, the spaces.
-Right!
-In between the dots.
-Right!
-Mm-hmm.
-Anybody -- Anybody can -- Anybody can play a note.
-Mm-hmm.
-It takes an artist to play the space.
-Look, this -- Why do you think I play a fretless banjo?
-I see that.
I know that.
I saw that.
And I appreciate that.
-This isn't -- Look, they gon' cut this out, but you were talking about -- I have to say this because you were talking about the energy and the, just, that kind of idea of even an object, right?
-Yes, yes.
-So the banjo -- and this is something that not a lot of people know -- Of course, the banjo is an African-American instrument.
-Yes.
-But it was created in the Caribbean, and it was a spiritual instrument, right?
And it was used -- [ Strums strings ] The way that it was used, the way that it was constructed, was all, like, mathematical, and it was all in an attempt to pull the spirit down through... -Yes, yes!
-...the instrument.
And it's just kind of like, if you're not making music from that place, what are you doing?
-Yes.
-That's kind of how I feel.
But it's, like, we don't value that.
We value a lot of other things in music-making.
-Yes.
-We're not always talking about what we're talking about right now.
This is, like -- You don't get this in interviews.
Like, let's talk about the soul of the music you're making -- Yes!
-It's like, gonna talk about -- Yeah, you know what I mean?
So I just wanted to -- When you said that, it really resonated for me because when I found this instrument and I found this -- this whole thing, everything made sense to me.
-Yes!
One of the things that I love about -- about singing is, it's like it almost feels like, "Get me out of the way.
I'm going to let something come through me."
-Praise.
-That's when I know I'm in the best place, is when I'm not even thinking about what I'm doing anymore.
And that's jazz, too.
Jazz is like, "Get out of the way and let the notes come."
-[ Laughs ] -You know, it's -- you can't think about it.
If you think about it, it's not jazz anymore.
-Right.
-And there's this kind of tradition with Western European music that's all about accuracy.
It's ballet, it's opera, it's, you know, hitting the notes, it's doing things very accurately.
And this kind of jazz, which is about, "Let's riff.
Let's -- Let's see where this goes."
It's about a feeling.
And it's that energy, also, is what I'm -- I'm attracted to.
-Yeah.
-And so I started bringing that in.
And that energy comes in so many ways.
It comes in as tone, color.
There's things you can do... [ Loudly ] ♪ Ah ♪ [ Softly ] ♪ Ah ♪ You know?
♪ There's a bright, golden haze on the meadow ♪ ♪ Ooh ooh-ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh ooh ooh-ooh ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh-ooh ooh ooh ♪ My voice is making both of those sounds, but there's a very different energy coming from both of them, and a very different thing that probably you're feeling -- you or anybody else who's listening to it... -Yeah.
-...from just the way it comes out, from the grit in it, from the tone in it, from the where I'm singing from, in my body.
-Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
-You know, there's an intellectual kind of singing, and there's songs that come from the heart, and songs that come from your gut, songs that come from your sexual organs.
-Absolutely.
-You know, it comes from -- They come from everywhere.
So I'm -- I'm -- I'm like, "Oh, a new place to play."
[ Laughs ] -So how do you -- Like, how do you -- 'cause this is something I do, too, is like -- -Mm-hmm.
-You know, I don't really even think about 'em as genres, it's just... -Mm-hmm.
[ Laughs ] -...the thing you need to do to sing this song, and the thing you need to do to sing that song.
Do you find your technique changes a lot?
Do you kind of have a certain sort of, "Okay, I'm in this groove, I'm in this --" Like, is it just automatic at this point?
Like, how do you... -You see, yeah, sort of.
The way that I've been planning concerts -- and this happened kind of after COVID -- I thought, "Okay, what now?"
Because that's mostly what I've been doing, is concerts all over the place.
"What do I want to say?
What do I want to do with my voice?
What do people need now?"
After the pandemic of 1917, what happened?
The Roaring '20s.
People went [Groaning] -[ Laughs ] -"Let's just play.
Let's just have fun.
Let's just drink..." Same today.
[ Laughs ] -"...and have sex and just go crazy," you know?
That's what people wanted to do.
♪ To dream the impossible dream ♪ ♪♪ I had a really interesting thing happen to me.
A lot of people know I was singing "The Impossible Dream" out my window during COVID.
[ Vocalizing ] After about six days of doing it, I was going to stop.
-For those of us who weren't in New York, you were -- you'd come to your window and then you would sing.
-I would start singing, because, at that time, New York spontaneously started this wonderful tradition at 7:00.
And I was laying in my bed, still sick with COVID, when it started.
[ Metal clanging ] I heard it from the front room and I asked my wife, "What's going on?
What's all that noise?"
She said, "New York started this crazy thing.
We open our windows.
If you're in your apartment, you bang on pots and pans."
-That's right.
-"If you're in your car, you stop and you honk your horn.
If you're on the street, you scream and yell and clap.
It's a way of thanking all the essential workers."
One day I just started, after clapping for all the everybody, I started spontaneously singing "The Impossible Dream" out my window.
♪ To be willing to march into hell ♪ And everybody kind of stopped and went "Whoa" on the street.
And I noticed there were more people on the street down.
And then I was closing my window at the end of it.
Wasn't going to sing, and somebody from the street says, "Sing the song!"
-[ Laughs ] -So that started me singing.
Six days into it, I was starting to feel, "Um, this doesn't feel right.
This is for essential workers, and now it feels like they're coming to hear me sing."
So I thought, "I'm going to stop doing this.
Now, the day I decided to do that, I'm walking into a market half a block away.
And as I'm about to walk in the door, I feel this tap on the shoulder, and I turn around and it's a neighbor I'd never met.
"He said, "Mr. Mitchell, you don't know me.
I'm a neighbor.
I live across the street.
I just wanted to talk to you just for a little bit and say thank you to you."
And he started getting emotional.
-Aww.
-And I said, "Oh, yeah.
What is it?"
He said, "I just want you to know that we come out to clap for all the essential workers, my wife and my two sons and I.
We come out every day to do that, but we also come out to hear you sing.
It's the one time in my day I feel joy."
-Oh, geez.
[ Chuckles ] Wow.
-I went, "Ohhh.
Yes."
Sometimes we forget, I think, as musicians.
It comes easy -- relatively easy.
We've worked really hard on it.
-Right, right.
-But, you know, it's easy to let music come through us and everything, and we forget the kind of effect that that has, that, "Oh, that's why all these people were here."
[ Cheers and applause ] -Right.
-"That's why they're gathering on the street."
So, for 2 1/2 months, every night, I continued to sing out my window.
-2 1/2 months?
-Yes.
So, my job now, I feel, as an artist, is to connect people to the joy space again.
-Yes.
-Because we've been so disconnected from it.
And I thought, "Oh, I didn't even know I was doing that, and I was doing that.
And it's something that I can do easily.
Now, okay, now this is what I was put on the planet for."
I'm so glad we're finally talking.
-I know.
-And this conversation is way too short.
We need much, much more.
-I know!
[ Laughs ] -I've probably gone three hours over my time already, right?
-I've thrown out all the cards.
-Oh, my God.
Yeah, who needs cards?
-Yeah.
You know, something else that is unique about you, I think, in addition to your ability to, you know, genre-hop, you know... -Takes one to know one.
-Yes.
You know, your jazz phrasing.
All of those things that make you such a unique and beautiful singer.
But you're also an arranger.
That's not a common thing, I don't think.
-Yeah, and I -- You probably didn't know that either.
-I didn't!
-You probably think, "Oh, everybody's doing this," but you don't realize it's not a common thing until you get older.
-How much of that was, like, kind of just with you from the beginning?
-It's something that I always wanted to do.
I always loved film music.
I remember, actually, when I was maybe 9 years old and my father was playing it on the stereo, and I remember I was listening to the music, and I remember, all of a sudden, going [Gasps].
"That's all -- That's these different sounds that are making up this sound."
It was an orchestral album, and all of a sudden, I could hear the French horn, I could hear the bassoon, I could hear the violin, I could hear the viola.
I -- Up until that moment, I'd heard music as one unit.
-Mm.
-And an orchestra was just one unit of sound.
All of a sudden, I realized [Gasps] it's made up of all of these little quanta of sound, these little tiny pieces that are all working together to create other colors.
I love odd rhythms, you know?
I did a -- The last album I did, it's called "Plays With Music," and I started the album with "There's No Business Like Show Business," but I started in kind of a usual 4.
But then I go into a 7.
♪ There's no business like show business, like no... ♪ Because, to me, show business is kind of quirky and weird and [Chuckles] off-center.
And that was one way of describing it musically.
And so then I put it into 5, and I did some other things with it, as well.
So, by the time you get to the end of it, it feels like the original, but it's something different.
♪ There's no business like show business ♪ ♪ Like no business I know ♪ ♪ Everything about it is appealing ♪ ♪ Everything that traffic will allow ♪ ♪ Nowhere could you get that happy feeling ♪ ♪ When you are stealing that extra bow ♪ -It's really inspiring, and -- and I hope that, you know, that other -- [Sighs] We're told, the singers, that we're less than, because we're just singers.
-[ Laughs ] -You know?
-Yes.
"Where's your instrument?"
-Especially in the jazz world.
I mean, so much, like, you know, that you have felt since the beginning and how you have, you know, like, relayed that in different aspects of, you know, how you make music and how you tell stories and how you connect to people.
And you connect to people in ways that you don't even know.
So, when I was younger, I used to -- I used to cut out photos from "People" magazine.
This is, like, before you could just go to Google, you know?
-Yes.
Yes, exactly.
-And I would just, like, see just interesting people.
Sometimes they were famous, Sometimes they weren't.
And I would cut them out, and I would laminate them and I would put them on a magnet.
I would make little magnets.
-That's cool.
-And so, there's a picture of you and your costar from "Kiss Me, Kate."
-Oh, wow.
-Year 2000.
You won the Tony for that.
And I remember so vividly.
I can remember it now.
I saw -- 'cause I've seen the movie, you know, and I know the show -- and I saw you there.
And I was like, "Oh, my God, there's a brown person in a role that's not specifically for a brown person.
That's amazing."
You know what I mean?
And a pretty famous show.
And it's not like that had never happened before, but it was just a moment.
I was in a particular space in my life, and I was just like -- it was just very -- it just gave me a lot of heart.
What is it that has changed since you came on the scene?
-It's nice to see, you know, because of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, what happened.
And it was really a very unique time in America's life, because finally, what happened was, we saw this terrible, awful thing happen that Black people have been talking about for a long, long, long time.
-Yes.
-One of the good things about COVID is that was an opportunity when, normally, something like that on the news, people would go, "Oh, my God, that's awful!
Okay, let's go to that Broadway show.
You got the tickets ready?
Okay, let's go to the concert.
We're supposed to go to the concert now."
-That's right.
-And you could do that.
-Or back to work or -- -Or back to work, or we're going to do our thing.
But we could not do that.
We were all trapped in our houses, on lockdown.
-Yeah.
-And because of the nature of the news now, it puts everything on the loop, so you not only watched it once, you watched it over and over and over and over and over.
But because of that, a door opened a little bit that had not been opened before.
And people started realizing, "Oh, I don't understand this."
White people.
-Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah.
-"I don't -- I really don't understand."
And they started opening up and going, "I want to read about this.
I want to learn about this.
I want to help with this.
Now I get it."
-How many phone calls did you get?
[ Laughs ] -Oh, tons, tons, lots.
[ Laughs ] Yes, lots.
Which was great.
And -- And can be wearying, as well.
I think the question is, "Now what?"
-Yeah.
-"Now what are you going to do?"
-You helped start an organization.
-Yes, yes.
-So, I just, you know, Black -- -Theatre United.
Yes, so that was one of those things, when the door was open, we all were saying, "Oh, we have an opportunity to do this."
One of the main things we did is we gathered people together.
And it wasn't just us.
We were kind of -- the advantage that we had were, there were 19 of us founding members, and the advantage that we had over -- 'cause there were many other groups that started at the same time.
Some of them, like We See You, White American Theater, that came out with this large tome, saying, "This is what's wrong.
We demand this, we demand this."
And that's kind of the first thing that got everybody going, "Oh, wait a second.
Oh, you're kind of talking about us right now.
What can we do?"
So it was easy for us to say, "Okay, let's work on this together..." -Right.
-"...and see how we can figure this out," because it's everybody's issue, it's everybody's problem, it's everybody's challenge.
And everybody is a part of that solution.
It's not a one-and-done.
-Well, this is the thing.
-Mm-hmm.
-It's systemic change.
-Yes.
And hopefully, then, that'll help more -- more folks have their "Kiss Me Kate" moment.
-Exactly, exactly.
-So, the last thing that I would love to talk -- or just get you to do, actually, can -- 'cause you -- you're now using your melodica in your solo show?
-In my show, yes, uh-huh.
-Can you give a little example of how you think about, like, even arranging something, or anything that you -- that would give us a little bit of a back door into your thoughts when you're -- when you're thinking about a song?
-Let me see what I have here.
Yeah, let me use, actually -- there's a tube -- these come with different mouthpieces.
-Yes.
So, let's see.
Okay, here's an interesting thing.
So, the first album that I did, I wanted to start the album off with something interesting, and I wanted to tell a story.
So I started out with "Something's Coming," because it's like saying, "Okay, here I am.
What is this something?"
And I started it out with African drums.
-Hmm.
-"Let me go from the foundation of who I am, what I am, who we all are.
Let me start there."
So it starts with this kind of announcement, you know, and then I start the thing that Bernstein wrote.
Usually, it's in 3.
Uh... [ "Something's Coming" plays ] ♪♪ An interesting thing, by the way, about that song is, I always wondered... [ Note plays ] ..."Why that tritone?
Why is it?"
[ Chord plays ] "Why is that there?
Why does he do that in 'Something's Coming,' which is a really brilliant thing?"
Listen to this.
[ "Maria" plays ] -Mm-hmm.
[ Chuckles ] -Maria!
-There it is.
That's what's coming.
It's, like, so brilliant.
You know, when you start getting inside music, it's, like, really fun.
Those are spaces, you know?
Leonard Bernstein was in those spaces.
So I thought, "Okay, let me take that, but let me do something different with it."
And I decided, "I'm going to change the rhythm in it.
I'm not going to do it in 3."
[ Scatting "Something's Coming" ] "And I want to have some funk in it."
So I added a guitar thing in it.
So it goes... [ "Something's Coming" plays in syncopation ] ♪♪ These are tiny keys for my big hands.
Sorry about the clams.
-[ Laughs ] But -- -Yeah, I can hear it.
I can hear it.
So then, I decided -- I moved it along that line, so I made it something funky, and I started putting all these other little kind of hints and little things and little tasty little things in.
The way that I ended the song, by the way, it ends with... ♪ Maybe tonight, maybe to-night ♪ And I end with, on the bass... [ "On Broadway" plays ] ♪♪ "On Broadway," right?
-"On Broadway," of course.
-It's "On Broadway" again.
Excuse my clams.
So, you know, you can put these little kind of subliminal messages in it, but that's why -- that's the fun.
-Oh!
-That's the spaces that you can play in then.
I could say, "Let me deconstruct this song, 'cause a million people have recorded that."
A million people have done "Impossible Dream."
And I had to think, "How am I going to do this differently?"
-Right.
-It's about discovering what in that song that I could do and kind of how can I play in the spaces, you know?
So, sorry about that very bad playing.
-No!
No, but it's -- -It's easier with the -- I usually don't play two hands on this, so... -It was really cool to hear that because it's like, it's you.
It's uniquely you.
-Yeah.
-You know what I mean?
You're putting yourself in the song.
That's why -- That's why you do it.
You always have to answer a question when you do something, right?
"Why am I doing this?"
-Yes!
Yes.
-Because I have to do it like I do it.
And nobody has seen that.
-Yes, exactly, exactly.
Yeah.
And that's what I like to tell people.
I'm sure you do this, too.
If I go and talk in colleges and to university students, I always say to people -- a lot of times, people say, "Oh, I want to be the next Brian Stokes Mitchell, or your next Rhiannon Giddens."
And one of the things I say is, "You know what?
Be the first you.
Nobody's seen that yet."
Whatever that is, that's the thing to -- steal from all those people that you want to!
-Exactly.
-Learn from all of those people.
But be the first you.
Nobody's seen that.
All the people that we love in the world -- the Bernsteins and the Marlon Brandos and the Denzel Washingtons -- we'd never seen anybody like that before.
You know?
So that's, I think, the secret to life, is to find those -- your own personal spaces to play in.
-Oh, well, they can be the first them, but you keep being you.
-[ Laughs ] Okay.
-Because you're making the world a better place.
-Yeah, I'm already taken, so... -[ Laughs ] It's been absolutely wonderful to talk to you.
Thank you so much.
-Thank you, Rhiannon!
To be continued.
-Yes, this is Part 1.
-Part 1.
[ Laughs ] -Part 1 of 20 episodes.
[ Both laugh ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪
Brian Stokes Mitchell Talks Musicality with Rhiannon Giddens
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: Ep2 | 45s | Stage actor Brian Stokes Mitchell and musician Rhiannon Giddens discuss musical artistry. (45s)
Episode 2 Preview | Rhiannon Giddens & Brian Stokes Mitchell
Video has Closed Captions
Preview: Ep2 | 31s | Musician Rhiannon Giddens and stage actor Brian Stokes Mitchell discuss theater and music. (31s)
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