NPR’s Rob Schmitz speaks with Jesse Rudoy, director of the documentary “Dusty & Stones,” in regards to the African nation music duo of the identical title.
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
A documentary that includes two musicians from a small African kingdom reveals how nation music has transcended worldwide borders.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE RIVER”)
DUSTY & STONES: (Singing) Standing subsequent to the river, it is a marvel. That is the place we met.
SCHMITZ: Cousins Gazi – Dusty – Simelane and Linda – Stones – Msibi hail from the dominion of Eswatini, previously often known as Swaziland, in southern Africa. Collectively, they make up the nation duo Dusty & Stones.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE RIVER”)
DUSTY & STONES: (Singing) Via 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 isn’t each day that you just 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 sort 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 shortly realized that there are nation singers in every single place. They’re everywhere in the world. However what I additionally sort of shortly realized was that there was loads of self-consciousness about being a rustic singer in, say, Poland or Norway or France. A sort of hallmark of non-American nation music was these artists had been sort of working double-time of their music to obfuscate the truth that they weren’t People. So they might be singing in form of put-on Southern American accents or speaking about Texas and Tennessee, though they had been from Poland or one thing.
Within the strategy of doing that analysis, I simply stumbled upon a really cryptically named YouTube video that simply stated African nation music. And it was the music video for Dusty & Stones – the primary single they ever launched known as “Dwelling,” which is all about their house village of Mooihoek that they grew up in. And I’ve to be sincere, like, inside seconds of clicking on this video, it was so clear that Dusty & Stone’s relationship to nation music and their strategy was simply a lot completely different from the opposite non-American nation singers I might come throughout.
SCHMITZ: Yeah, there is a diploma of authenticity to each of them and the way they relate to the music. You recognize, within the first line of the movie, I feel it is Dusty who’s speaking about how Dolly Parton’s “Tennessee Mountain Dwelling” makes him consider Mooihoek, his hometown. You recognize, 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: Once I first spoke with Dusty & Stones, I discovered that that they had grown up down a mud street, spent their afternoons herding the household’s cattle. Their grandfather was a preacher – that they went, you already know, all the way down to their small church down the street to listen to him preach each Sunday. It was so clear that, you already know, they weren’t exoticizing nation music in any means.
SCHMITZ: You recognize, and even supposing, you already know, not many individuals are exhibiting as much as their gigs of their house nation, they’re all of the sudden – out of the blue – invited to play at a Texas music competition. You recognize, there are a number of notable nation musicians of coloration, however this can be a largely white music style. And right here now we have two African cousins who really feel nation music deep of their hearts. How did audiences in the US react to that?
RUDOY: Once we arrived in Jefferson, Texas, you already know, I felt compelled to allow them to know what was responsible for me concern in noticing sure issues about Jefferson, Texas. After which I feel what we do seize within the movie – that is, you already know, not stated explicitly, however I feel actually 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 counsel they do not know the way to play their music. He laughs on the title of Mooihoek, their hometown, as a result of he sees it in a music title, and he laughs on the pronunciation. You’ll be able to actually see that they are simply so thrown off guard, and it was painful to look at as a filmmaker who was there. Whereas concurrently figuring out that this was making the movie extra related, extra attention-grabbing and extra consequential, it was nonetheless so painful to look at them should have their first brush with, frankly, thinly veiled American racism in the direction of Black individuals.
SCHMITZ: Yeah, and it is an uncomfortable second within the movie as properly. Simply watching it’s uncomfortable. It is – you already know, nevertheless it’s attention-grabbing. Their – at first, in fact, their response is that they’re shocked. They’re unhappy. However after some time, they form of – they begin to say, properly, look, we’re right here to play nation music, and that is what we’ll do. And they also’re form of down within the dumps after this primary form of preliminary response in Jefferson, Texas. However then they resolve to exit at evening to a bar, and also you virtually see an reverse response. Speak slightly 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 recognize, I had been to Swaziland now a number of occasions after we filmed this, and I used to be seeing this via 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 already know, 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 would see that of their eyes as quickly as they walked in there. You recognize, these guys all the time felt this intrinsic kinship from afar with individuals from the southern United States, the folks 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) Via storms…
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