Rhiannon Giddens is an American musician. She is known as the lead singer, violinist, banjo player and a founding member of the Grammy-winning country, blues and old-time music Carolina Chocolate Drops. She is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina and a 2000 graduate of Oberlin Conservatory where she studied opera.
In 2013 Giddens began pushing further into her solo career. Giddens participated in Another Day, Another Time, a concert inspired by the Coen brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis.Many critics have stated that Giddens had the best performance at what was called the concert of the year.Late in 2013, Giddens contributed the track We Riseto the LP We Are Not For Sale: Songs of Protest by the NC Music Love Army a collective of activist musicians from North Carolina founded by Jon Lindsay and Caitlin Cary.Giddens' powerful protest song joins contributions from many other Carolina music luminaries on the compilation (11/26/13 via Redeye Distribution), which was created to support the NC NAACP and the Moral Monday movement