(soft banjo music) ♪ My friend, the native day ♪ ♪ Mighty pile of stone inside ♪ (fingers sweep over gourd) ♪ Embody the Earth and make your wish ♪ ♪ Finding solace in who were mountain winds ♪ (banjo music continues) - I'm Hannah Mayree.

Welcome to my workshop, welcome to my world.

I sort of settled on a path that really combines all of the feelings that I have had about the banjo.

My love, my curiosity of the music, as well as anger and pain that has come from the Black disconnection that happened through colonization.

(haunting notes play) When I'm working on a banjo, it just gives me an opportunity to focus on what's in front of me.

The gourd, the goat skin, (gourd shaking) and the wood for the neck are earthen materials.

I've broken the neck of my banjo.

I've had the banjo that I was traveling with like, fall out of the car.

Being able to sort of control this thing that your livelihood depends on because for a long time I made money by playing music.

Learning how to make a banjo (mallet hammers) ended up being a real, genuine desire, and there was a question of are Black people making these instruments?

(birdsong) (calming banjo music) I grew up in Sacramento with my family.

My dad was a journalist, my mom was a musician and a music teacher.

I always played music in the home.

It was never something that I thought of having any sort of future with.

When I first started playing a little bit more folk music, I was traveling.

(traffic rushes in the distance) My journey on the road started as one where I was exploring my own roots.

(water splashes) I got a lot of experience going to just dozens of cities, rural areas, counties, and getting a good mix of the lay of the land of what is America, what is Turtle Island?

(birds call) My family history is such that they were part of the Great Migration and that was why my grandmother left Florida (children laugh) in the fifties for Oakland, California, which is where my mom was born.

(birds cry out) I think I was given less information about my mom's side of the family.

It led to me as an older person wanting to have more answers, - Let's play with Teddy Bear.

- [Hannah] And I think that's similar to the situation with the banjo.

(banjo music plays) I had already come up in all of my formative years, knowing from experience about being a Black person and to arrive at the banjo and I was immediately drawn to it musically, (vocals sing softly) it kinda leads to more people telling you the story of it.

♪ My home is the earth ♪ ♪ That I stand on ♪ ♪ Calling last, going nowhere fast ♪ ♪ Flailing through eternity ♪ ♪ Space would encase me ♪ ♪ Absorbing time ♪ ♪ With my mind ♪ ♪ We travel endlessly, wanting to go home ♪ ♪ Where is home?

♪ (birdsong) I did not know that the banjo was a Black instrument growing up.

(water swishes) There are many different gourd lute instruments that come from Africa.

We trace the roots of the banjo to the Caribbean, and we also see it show up on Turtle Island.

The roots of it, for even several hundred years after and during slavery was happening, this instrument was only in the hands of Black people.

During the 16 or 1700s and by the 1800s, it was fully grasped in white culture.

The blackface minstrelsy really took off as really popular, even into the 20th century.

(slide clicks) There's histories of minstrelsy that really spanned for large amounts of time (slide clicks) until there were some other types of ways that white people started expressing themselves on the banjo and, starting in the late 1800s, the manufacturing and the production of the banjo started to be a thing.

(birdsong) I think more people would know about the origins of the banjo if we sort of saw more gourd banjos in circulation.

(contents of the gourd patter) So I did the oak leaves just as like an ode to Oakland, as well as just to the trees, which is how we get the materials that we need for the necks.

(chisel rustles) I started an organization called the Black Banjo Reclamation Project.

In that first year, a lot came up around what is reclamation.

(mallet hammers) I had been doing workshops, hosting community events.

It also ended up being a question and a pursuit of not just the origins culturally, but the actual origins of the instruments that were being built.

(chisel scratches) The beginning of 2020 through a lot of different collaborative efforts, we had about 10, 15 people at our first workshop making a banjo.

Okay.

That was something that emerged as an all Black space for building banjos.

(maracas shake) It has been a process where, even as someone who is teaching banjo making, I'm learning at the same time.

(sandpaper scratches) ♪ I'm on the other side ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side ♪ (sandpaper drags back and forth) ♪ I'm on the other side ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side of it ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side of it ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side of it ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side of it ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side of it ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side of it ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side of it ♪ ♪ I'm on the other side of it ♪ ♪ I... ♪ (traffic rushes by in the distance) Hi, how are you?

- That's my girl.

Good to see you.

- I feel like we could check in about this one.

- This is doable.

- Do a little evaluation.

- Mhmm, certainly doable.

It's something we can do today.

(file clinks) Okay.

(file drags back and forth) - A luthier is someone who makes a .. Do I consider myself a luthier?

I think at some point in my life, I'll consider myself a luthier.

Focusing on just doing it rather than sort of the title.

(Hannah playing the banjo) And that's kind of like the four lines that make up.

And we can do it together, we can do it slow.

- [Student] Here we go!

(Hannah laughs) - Okay, at the beginning.

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.. Once I've finished building a banjo, I like to experiment a lot.

I like to be able to bring a softness to the banjo that isn't always present there as well.

Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.

(uplifting banjo music plays) We are so glad to be in this circle with you all.

(violin begins playing) It's good to see everybody.

And we are gonna still do our performances and we're gonna go on the stage, but we just thought we would just start off like this.

♪ La di da da dum.

♪ I'm working on a new album.

♪ Da dum.

♪ I play all the instruments on it, so it's a very genre-less way to experience banjo in this form.

- [Group] La di da da dum.

Da di da da dum.

- [Hannah] I wanna be intentional about what I can share through music and how I can use music as a way to bring people together in ways that can also be acknowledging of reality.

- [Group] La di da da dum.

(audience cheers and claps) - Why, you!

- I don't even care.

- Black Banjo Reclamation Project, the vision that she has and the power that she brings are inspiring to me and I've been blessed to work with this organization.

Earth-based, human-based, I mean what's not to love?

(audience cheers and claps) (wind blows) - I mean, what's not to love about reparations?

What's not to love about giving visibility to all of our Black community, you know?

(audience claps a rhythm) - And what do you want to sing?

Somebody's got it.

♪ Put your roots down.

♪ ♪ Put your feet on the ground.

♪ ♪ You can hear what she said if you listen.

♪ ♪ Are you listening?

♪ ♪ Are you listening?

♪ ♪ Are you listening?

♪ Join me now, let's say it.

♪ Put your roots down.

♪ ♪ Put your feet on the ground.

♪ ♪ You can hear what she said if you listen.

♪ ♪ Are you listening?

♪ (crowd cheers) ♪ Are you listening?

♪ ♪ Are you listening?

♪ ♪ Are you listening?

♪ ♪ Are you listening?

♪ ♪ Put your roots down.

♪ ♪ Put your feet on the ground.

♪ - Come on, I wanna hear you!

- (laughs) Thanks.

- I like that.

♪ Are you listening?

♪ - Yeah.

♪ Put your roots down, put your feet on the ground.

♪ ♪ You can hear what she says if you listen ♪ ♪ Because the sound of the river ♪ ♪ As it rose across the stone ♪ ♪ Is the same sound as the blood in your body ♪ ♪ As it moves across your bones ♪ ♪ Are you listening?

Are you listening?

♪ ♪ Are you listening?

Are you listening?

♪ (fingers snap) ♪ Are you listening?

♪ - We've done eight banjo builds over the last several years (machinery whirs) to be creating something beyond myself to change the social conditions that Black people are in, whether that is in music or whether that is on any face of the planet.

(haunting notes play) (banjo plays) I do eventually see opening up a luthier school for banjo.

(meditative vocals sing) The reason why I'm doing this is to like change the game as well as changing the face of who are luthiers in this country right now.

There's very few Black luthiers that exist - [Workshop Attendee] Thank you so much!

- so that there is a time when people can say, I would really like to have a banjo that was not only made by a Black person, but made by a Black person who was doing it (gravel sifts) as a form of liberation.

♪ My home is the earth ♪ ♪ That I stand on ♪ ♪ Calling last, going nowhere fast ♪ ♪ Flailing through eternity ♪ ♪ The space would encase me ♪ ♪ Absorbing time ♪ ♪ With my mind ♪ ♪ Traveling endlessly, wanting to go home.

♪ ♪ Where is home?

♪ ♪ I'm on the floor, where am I going?

♪ ♪ I hear the stones that my feet are on ♪ ♪ I'm fighting gravity.

♪ ♪ The air is a flow from the edges of the soul ♪ ♪ The dessert is a howl ♪ ♪ That crashes and cracks on my skin.

♪ ♪ On my skin ♪ ♪ My home is a cart, my home is a den, ♪ ♪ My home is laid on red ♪ ♪ My home is heaven sent ♪ ♪ So comfortably made for me.

♪