AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation with the folk musicians Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman. Last week, they performed at the Kennedy Center, where they unfurled banners to protest President Trump’s takeover of the famed cultural institution. The banners read “Reinstate Queer Programming” and “Creativity at the Kennedy Center Must Not Be Suppressed.”

Nora and Stephanie released the record Lady of the Lake on the Brooklyn-based Jalopy Records. Nora is a prize-winning guitar and banjo player and has released three other albums on Jalopy Records. She’s 19 years old. Stephanie is regarded as one of the premier fiddlers of her generation. She holds the record for most ribbons won in the renowned fiddle contest at the Appalachian String Band Music Festival in Clifftop, West Virginia.

Thank you both for staying with us. It’s great to have you with us. In Part 1 of our conversation, we talked about what you did at the Kennedy Center, but we didn’t really set the stage, and now we have a little time. Can you tell us where you were in the Kennedy Center on Thursday? Because that was the same day that the Vances came in to see the National Symphony, and they were booed. Where were you?

NORA BROWN: Yeah.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah. For our performance, we were on the Millennium Stage. So, the way that it’s set up at the Kennedy Center is that there’s a long, wide corridor, and at one end of it is the Millennium Stage, and at the other end was the entrance to the show that Vance and his wife attended. So —

AMY GOODMAN: The National Symphony, yeah.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: The National Symphony Orchestra’s performance there. So, while we were playing our show, we watched as audience members filed into that theater.

AMY GOODMAN: So, this is hundreds of security and audience members.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Oh yeah, hundreds of people. It got really packed at one point.

NORA BROWN: Yeah, it’s like kind of surreal, actually, because it’s so far away, but, like, we’re playing this show and watching just like hundreds of people, like, pass through these metal detectors. It’s just kind of a strange —

AMY GOODMAN: And hearing the booing?

NORA BROWN: No. That was, like, a bit after our set, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: I see.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, you’re there playing. And let’s talk about your decision to play. There are a number of artists who decided to pull out, not to perform. But you made a different decision. And, Nora, explain why you decided to show up but unfurl banners. And talk about what each of your banners said.

NORA BROWN: Yeah. I will say it was kind of a drawn-out and laborious decision to decide to play the show, mainly because there is this movement of boycotting the Kennedy Center that’s happening among artists, where people are deciding to not offer their art to the Kennedy Center stages because of their weaponization by Trump. And, you know, I think that there are many different forms of protest, and I think that we need to think critically about how — you know, the most effective form of protest for people, it varies. You know, and —

AMY GOODMAN: Rhiannon Giddens, for example, said — 

NORA BROWN: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: — she’s not going to play.

NORA BROWN: Which makes total sense, you know, when you make the news when you cancel, that that really makes an impact. But, like, for smaller artists, we found — 

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Well, yeah. What would have been the reverberation of us canceling?

NORA BROWN: Yeah, right, you know? So, we were like, “Where can we have the — where can we cause the most disruption?” You know, protest should feel like you’re being disobedient. And where is that going to — where are we going to touch on that feeling?

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the banners you unfurled and the response to your protest.

NORA BROWN: Yeah, we had three signs.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah, yeah, we had three signs on the stage. We brought out — about halfway through our performance, we brought out two big cardboard posters on either side of us. One read “Creativity at the Kennedy Center Must Not Be Suppressed.”

NORA BROWN: Yeah.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: The other one read “Reinstate Queer Programming.”

AMY GOODMAN: And what does queer programming mean to you?

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah. I mean, well, I think that was — I mean, to me, that means, you know, LGBTQ+ programming that is happening at — that was scheduled at the —

NORA BROWN: Yeah.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: — Kennedy Center and was canceled. So, we were specifically, like, really disturbed by the cancellation of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington’s performance, which was to happen as a Pride celebration in May.

NORA BROWN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: I do hear that, at least according to Steve Bannon, that the J6 Choir is going to be performing. Those are the insurrectionists.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yes.

NORA BROWN: I mean, I can’t believe that’s true. Is it? It’s crazy.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah. Is that really going to happen? We really hope it’s not.

AMY GOODMAN: I don’t know.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Well, we’re going to see, yeah. But that was really what, like, was really, really upsetting to us, to see that and read the statement by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington in response. You know, it was — yeah, that was something that inspired us to focus on that for that poster.

NORA BROWN: Yeah. And even, I think that that cancellation has really been underplayed, like the role that Trump had in that. You know, I think there’s been some statements published by the Kennedy Center that that decision was actually made before Trump assumed his role as chair. And I think that that’s just not — it’s too much of a coincidence, you know? And I think that that really — we wanted to really highlight the intentionality in that decision to cancel that show and replace it with, like, The Wizard of Oz or something. I think that that’s what they did.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, if, in fact, they replaced it with The Wizard of Oz, I think Yip Harburg would be rolling in his grave. Yip Harburg was the lyricist for The Wizard of Oz, and he was blacklisted during the 1950s.

NORA BROWN: Oh yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: So he certainly knows about government repression and suppression. Nora, you are so young. You’re a college sophomore. You’re 19 years old. You’ve put out four albums, award-winning banjo player and guitarist. Talk about where you come from.

NORA BROWN: Yeah, well, not too far from here. I grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. And I kind of was introduced to old-time traditional music by chance. I wanted to learn ukulele when I was pretty young, and I happened to learn from this guy, Shlomo Pestcoe, who really only taught traditional music. I didn’t know what it was. My family didn’t, either. But I just kind of got sucked into this really robust community that exists in Brooklyn and in New York City in general. But yeah, that kind of led me to the Jalopy Theatre, which is this really wonderful venue in Red Hook, Brooklyn, that is kind of how I met Stephanie, too. Like, we were kind of connected by that. It’s like the hub for folk music today in Brooklyn, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about your trajectory, Stephanie.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah. Mine was similar. I grew up in Chicago, which is, you know, an unlikely spot to pick up the old-time Appalachian fiddle. My dad is a fiddle player. My family is from Chicago. And my dad got into the music through a folk school similar to Jalopy in Chicago. He just walked in there and took some lessons and then ended up going to West Virginia and hearing all this music. And I was raised with this music all around, so, yeah, growing up in Chicago, learned all the music and then moved to New York after college and have been playing music here ever since.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I’d like to ask you about some of your choices. I’m sure you carefully selected the music that you played. I mean, this was such a big moment for both of you. Why don’t you share your first song? It’s wonderful to see here you, Stephanie, with your fiddles, and you with your guitar, Nora.

NORA BROWN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s the first song you’re going to perform?

NORA BROWN: I think we’ll sing a song called “Black Waters,” that was written by the great dulcimer player and singer Jean Ritchie. And yeah, it’s the song, you know, written about some of the strip mining that is pretty prevalent in eastern Kentucky specifically, which is where Jean Ritchie was from. Yeah, shall we give it a try?

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah, let’s do it.

NORA BROWN and STEPHANIE COLEMAN: [performing “Black Waters”]

I come from the mountains, Kentucky’s my home
Where the wild deer and the black bear so lately did roam
By the cool rushing waterfall the wildflowers dream
Through every green valley, there runs a clear stream
Now there’s scenes of destruction on every hand
And only black waters run down through my land

And wouldn’t that be like the old promised land?
Black waters, black waters no more in my land
Black waters, black waters no more in my land.

AMY GOODMAN: Oh, that’s really magnificent. “Black Waters” is about mountaintop removal? So, you performed that at the Kennedy Center. And can you share another song?

NORA BROWN: Yeah, sure.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah, we’ll share — I think this was the last song that played in the set at Kennedy Center.

NORA BROWN: Yeah.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: This is a song called “Sow ’Em on the Mountains.”

NORA BROWN: Yeah.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: And yeah, we — it’s a good audience participation song.

NORA BROWN: Yeah, yeah. Our friend Eli Smith likes to say that folk — American folk music is our collective inheritance. And we wanted to really highlight that. It becomes highlighted when people are singing together songs they might not even know, but, you know, you learn it on the spot and just that active — that action of — 

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: All coming together in voice.

NORA BROWN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah. So, “Sow ’Em on the Mountain.”

NORA BROWN: “Sow ’Em on the Mountain.”

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah. And one thing about this tune is I remember — I remember being, like, a kid in Chicago and seeing some friends of ours, this great string band called the Foghorn Stringband, play this one on stage in Chicago during the Bush administration, and — the younger Bush. And they said, you know, “We want to send this out to Bush. Like, hope he’s thinking about these sort of things. You know, you’re going to reap what you sow.”

NORA BROWN: Yeah.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: So, it’s a little dark that it applies again now. Here we are. But here’s the tune.

NORA BROWN: Yeah, we encourage any audience out there to sing along, too. OK.

NORA BROWN and STEPHANIE COLEMAN: [performing “Sow ’Em on the Mountain”]

If you been a-lying you better quit your lying
If you been a-lying you better quit your lying
If you been a-lying you better quit your lying
You’re gonna reap just what you sow

Sow 'em on the mountain reap ’em in the valley
Sow ’em on the mountain reap ’em in the valley
Sow ’em on the mountain reap ’em in the valley
You're gonna reap just what you sow
You’re gonna reap just what you sow.

AMY GOODMAN: “Sow ’Em on the Mountain.” Thank you so much, Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman. Where do you go from here?

NORA BROWN: Where do we go?

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Oh yeah, we — we’ve got a tour in May.

NORA BROWN: That’s true, yeah. We’re opening for a band called Black Country, New Road, out in the West Coast.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah.

NORA BROWN: And that’ll be mid-May, but for a few dates, you know? We’ll be all over California, playing Chicago.

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And why don’t we end where we began, is how did people respond to what you did on the stage at the Kennedy Center?

NORA BROWN: It was really overwhelmingly positive. We were a little, like — we were a little nervous. But — 

STEPHANIE COLEMAN: Yeah.

NORA BROWN: It was really, really meaningful to receive support from our friends and peers in the music community and outside of that community, too.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, thank you for bringing your artistry here to Democracy Now!, Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman. Last week, they performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and unfurled banners to protest President Trump’s takeover of this famed cultural institution, the banners reading “Reinstate Queer Programming” and “Creativity at the Kennedy Center Must Not Be Suppressed.” Thanks so much for joining us. And for folks who want to see Part 1 of our discussion and hear them perform “The Unicorn,” go to democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.