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NPR’s Rob Schmitz speaks with Jesse Rudoy, director of the documentary “Dusty & Stones,” concerning the African nation music duo of the identical identify.
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
A documentary that includes two musicians from a small African kingdom exhibits how nation music has transcended worldwide borders.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE RIVER”)
DUSTY & STONES: (Singing) Standing subsequent to the river, it is a surprise. That is the place we met.
SCHMITZ: Cousins Gazi – Dusty – Simelane and Linda – Stones – Msibi hail from the dominion of Eswatini, previously generally known as Swaziland, in southern Africa. Collectively, they make up the nation duo Dusty & Stones.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE RIVER”)
DUSTY & STONES: (Singing) By storms and bone-dry winter, this river was all the time there.
SCHMITZ: Becoming a member of us now could be the director of the documentary “Dusty & Stones,” Jesse Rudoy. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, Jesse.
JESSE RUDOY: Hello, Rob. Thanks a lot for having me. It is nice to be right here.
SCHMITZ: So it’s not day by day that you simply hear about nation musicians from the African kingdom of Eswatini. How on Earth did you discover these guys?
RUDOY: Yeah, the method simply started with me form of doing my very own poking around the globe by way of the web, trying to see the place there have been pockets of nation music fandom and the place there have been nation music singers. And I rapidly realized that there are nation singers in all places. They’re everywhere in the world. However what I additionally form of rapidly realized was that there was quite a lot of self-consciousness about being a rustic singer in, say, Poland or Norway or France. A form of hallmark of non-American nation music was these artists had been form of working double-time of their music to obfuscate the truth that they weren’t People. So they’d be singing in type of put-on Southern American accents or speaking about Texas and Tennessee, though they had been from Poland or one thing.
Within the means of doing that analysis, I simply stumbled upon a really cryptically named YouTube video that simply mentioned African nation music. And it was the music video for Dusty & Stones – the primary single they ever launched referred to as “Residence,” which is all about their house village of Mooihoek that they grew up in. And I’ve to be trustworthy, like, inside seconds of clicking on this video, it was so clear that Dusty & Stone’s relationship to nation music and their method was simply a lot completely different from the opposite non-American nation singers I would come throughout.
SCHMITZ: Yeah, there is a diploma of authenticity to each of them and the way they relate to the music. You already know, within the first line of the movie, I feel it is Dusty who’s speaking about how Dolly Parton’s “Tennessee Mountain Residence” makes him consider Mooihoek, his hometown. You already know, I used to be questioning, like, what resonated with you about how these two cousins spoke about nation music virtually in, like, deeply non secular, deeply heartfelt phrases?
RUDOY: After I first spoke with Dusty & Stones, I realized that that they had grown up down a dust highway, spent their afternoons herding the household’s cattle. Their grandfather was a preacher – that they went, you recognize, right down to their small church down the highway to listen to him preach each Sunday. It was so clear that, you recognize, they weren’t exoticizing nation music in any means.
SCHMITZ: You already know, and even though, you recognize, not many individuals are displaying as much as their gigs of their house nation, they’re abruptly – out of the blue – invited to play at a Texas music pageant. You already know, there are a number of notable nation musicians of shade, however this can be a largely white music style. And right here we have now two African cousins who really feel nation music deep of their hearts. How did audiences in the US react to that?
RUDOY: After we arrived in Jefferson, Texas, you recognize, I felt compelled to allow them to know what was the reason for me concern in noticing sure issues about Jefferson, Texas. After which I feel what we do seize within the movie – that is, you recognize, not mentioned explicitly, however I feel definitely for an American viewers – is you see Dusty & Stone’s unlucky first brush with American racism.
They encounter this band chief who’s so dismissive and so impolite to them and recommend they do not know tips on how to play their music. He laughs on the identify of Mooihoek, their hometown, as a result of he sees it in a tune title, and he laughs on the pronunciation. You possibly can actually see that they are simply so thrown off guard, and it was painful to observe as a filmmaker who was there. Whereas concurrently understanding that this was making the movie extra related, extra fascinating and extra consequential, it was nonetheless so painful to observe them must have their first brush with, frankly, thinly veiled American racism in direction of Black folks.
SCHMITZ: Yeah, and it is an uncomfortable second within the movie as effectively. Simply watching it’s uncomfortable. It is – you recognize, but it surely’s fascinating. Their – at first, after all, their response is that they’re shocked. They’re unhappy. However after some time, they type of – they begin to say, effectively, look, we’re right here to play nation music, and that is what we’ll do. And they also’re type of down within the dumps after this primary type of preliminary response in Jefferson, Texas. However then they determine to exit at night time to a bar, and also you virtually see an reverse response. Discuss just a little bit about that.
RUDOY: Dusty & Stones stroll into this bar. It is a karaoke bar, and it is full of individuals sporting cowboy hats, singing these well-known American nation songs that Dusty & Stones love. You already know, I had been to Swaziland now a number of instances once we filmed this, and I used to be seeing this by means of Dusty & Stone’s eyes, who love nation music a lot however who come from a spot the place there’s probably not organically occurring nation music.
SCHMITZ: Proper.
RUDOY: For them to stroll right into a bar, the place, you recognize, a man in boots is on stage simply singing the songs that they know, it was like strolling into their wildest nation music fantasies, and you could possibly see that of their eyes as quickly as they walked in there. You already know, these guys all the time felt this intrinsic kinship from afar with folks from the southern United States, the those that made nation music. And so I feel in that scene, you are seeing them get to discover that kinship that – felt from afar in individual for the primary time.
SCHMITZ: That is Jesse Rudoy, the director of the documentary “Dusty & Stones.” Jesse, thanks a lot.
RUDOY: Thanks a lot for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE RIVER”)
DUSTY & STONES: (Singing) By storms…
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