Separation in culture and arts does nobody any favors except for the people in power. That's just it... So I feel like I'm in the business of challenging that narrative.

I keep starting supergroups, writing ballets and things like that.

When I do Gaelic music, I've learned about Gaelic culture; I've tried to learn the language. Whenever I do mouth music and there's Gaelic speakers in the audience, and they come up and go, 'Good job,' I'm always like, 'Phew.'

I'm so interested in the feminism of women in American music. These ladies, going out on the road, way before the opportunities and advantages that I have - it was absolutely rough out there. The fact that they were still able to get their art out there and do what they're doing is really impressive to me.

I'll talk about the banjo all day long and the history of minstrel shows.

I've been getting interested in reimagining folk songs and writing songs that should have existed but didn't, particularly around the Civil War when black voices were muted and only allowed particular channels.

My work as a whole is about excavating and shining a light on pieces of history that not only need to be seen and heard, but that can also add to the conversation about what's going on now.

You have to find the balance of figuring out how can I be effective? How can I use my platform for good, you know, without jeopardizing everything so that I don't have that platform anymore.

I'm not good at planning ahead because it's just too much. I plan, set it up and then don't think about it again until it's almost time. That's just how it goes.

The banjo is my chosen instrument - it's what I write my music on.

I always felt culturally adrift as a child because I'm mixed race. I've had to deal with that since I was little. Who am I? What makeup do I have? What are the black and the white?

I play a replica of a banjo from the 1950s. It was the first commercial-style banjo in the United States so it's the first one that white people played.

I wouldn't be out here touring constantly if I didn't hope that my music was going to do something to somebody.

I think songs can have different lives.

To sit in my concert and be uncomfortable is brave. Because you could always leave, you know?

If I want to support my family and my crew, we have to be on the road, and that's really tiring.

There is a black folk music audience. They're just very small.

Anybody who thinks the lute just came out of a vacuum doesn't know the history.

People think art comes out of strife. No, art comes out of love, and it comes out of freedom, and it comes out of feeling safe, and it comes out of feeling embraced by the vibe and by the energy. That's when you can make your best stuff.

I stood on people's shoulders, so I want to be there for somebody else to take it even further.

There was such hostility to the idea of a banjo being a black instrument. It was co-opted by this white supremacist notion that old-time music was the inheritance of white America.

Well, you know, the original banjos were all handmade instruments. Gourd - it would be made with gourds and whatever, you know, materials would have been around. And, you know, first hundred years of its existence, the banjo's known as a plantation instrument, as a black instrument, you know?

My dad's white, my mom's black, and I've struggled with being mixed race.

People seem ready for a more in-depth idea of folk music, culture and history.