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 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 way of storms and bone-dry winter, this river was all the time there.
SCHMITZ: Becoming a member of us now’s 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-after-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 type of doing my very own poking all over the world 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 all over the place. They’re all around the world. However what I additionally type of shortly realized was that there was a number of self-consciousness about being a rustic singer in, say, Poland or Norway or France. A type of hallmark of non-American nation music was these artists had been type of working double-time of their music to obfuscate the truth that they weren’t Individuals. So they might be singing in type of put-on Southern American accents or speaking about Texas and Tennessee, regardless that they had been from Poland or one thing.
Within the technique 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 dwelling 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 would come throughout.
SCHMITZ: Yeah, there is a diploma of authenticity to each of them and the way they relate to the music. You realize, within the first line of the movie, I believe it is Dusty who’s speaking about how Dolly Parton’s “Tennessee Mountain Residence” makes him consider Mooihoek, his hometown. You realize, I used to be questioning, like, what resonated with you about how these two cousins spoke about nation music nearly in, like, deeply religious, deeply heartfelt phrases?
RUDOY: After I first spoke with Dusty & Stones, I realized that that they had grown up down a dust street, spent their afternoons herding the household’s cattle. Their grandfather was a preacher – that they went, you understand, all the way down to their small church down the street to listen to him preach each Sunday. It was so clear that, you understand, they weren’t exoticizing nation music in any method.
SCHMITZ: You realize, and even though, you understand, not many individuals are displaying as much as their gigs of their dwelling nation, they’re all of the sudden – out of the blue – invited to play at a Texas music competition. You realize, there are a number of notable nation musicians of colour, 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 understand, I felt compelled to allow them to know what should be blamed for me concern in noticing sure issues about Jefferson, Texas. After which I believe what we do seize within the movie – that is, you understand, not mentioned explicitly, however I believe 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 methods 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 may 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 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 nicely. Simply watching it’s uncomfortable. It is – you understand, nevertheless it’s fascinating. Their – at first, in fact, their response is that they’re shocked. They’re unhappy. However after some time, they type of – they begin to say, nicely, 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 resolve to exit at evening to a bar, and also you nearly see an reverse response. Discuss a bit bit about that.
RUDOY: Dusty & Stones stroll into this bar. It is a karaoke bar, and it is full of individuals carrying cowboy hats, singing these well-known American nation songs that Dusty & Stones love. You realize, I had been to Swaziland now a number of instances after we filmed this, and I used to be seeing this by Dusty & Stone’s eyes, who love nation music a lot however who come from a spot the place there’s not likely organically occurring nation music.
SCHMITZ: Proper.
RUDOY: For them to stroll right into a bar, the place, you understand, 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 can see that of their eyes as quickly as they walked in there. You realize, these guys all the time felt this intrinsic kinship from afar with individuals from the southern United States, the those that made nation music. And so I believe 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 way of storms…
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