Hi, I'm Rhiannon Giddens.

Welcome to Ireland, my second home.

We're here in Dublin at Whelan's, a legendary music venue that was one of the first places I ever played in this country.

In this season of My Music, we'll be visiting with some of the wonderful artists who call Ireland home.

Connolly's of Leap is a well-known venue for traditional music housed in a 500-year-old building in West Cork.

Its current owner was born upstairs in the building and now the next generation helps run the family business and they are friends of Sallay Garnett.

Sallay, also known as Loah, is one of the most spiritually balanced people you'll ever meet.

Her beautiful outlook on life infuses her music with an energy that draws you in and also embodies her Sierra Leonean as well as her Irish experience.

♪ ♪ When I rise up above the earth And look down on the things that fetter me When I rise up above the earth And look down on the things that fetter me I beat my wings upon the air I beat my wings upon the air I beat my wings upon the air or tranquil lie.

Surge after surge of potent strength Like incense comes to me.

Surge after surge of potent strength Like incense comes to me.

When I rise up above the earth When I rise up above the earth Look down upon the things that fetter me Look down upon the things that fetter me Ahh, ahh When I rise up When I rise up When I rise up When I rise up I beat my wings upon the air I beat my wings upon the air I beat my wings upon the air or tranquil lie.

Ahh, ahh When I rise up When I rise up When I rise up... First, I wanted to start with your stage name.

Can you tell me, like, where does it come from?

- The Loah...

I wanted a stage name because I have many occupations in life.

I'm a trained pharmacist as well as a musician, but, I definitely felt like when I perform, I like to really step into kind of fourth-dimensional space.

And I was reading a book by Isabel Allende, about...it's called Island Under the Sea, about the Haitian Revolution.

- So really light and frothy.

Yeah, very frolicking in the fields.

Just, you know, easy beach read.

Yeah.

- Yeah, right.

And, it's about this gorgeous character of a young slave girl, and it tracks her whole life and through the revolution and falling in love and and getting to America and becoming free.

And she's always praying the whole way through.

And of course, it's Haiti so she's praying to the Haitian “loas”, they're called, the voodoo gods and whatnot.

But, I just loved that she would call on the loa of this, loa of that, and this idea of these protective spirits, that just struck something with me.

And so later on, I, I just googled the name “Loah” spelled the way I spell it.

And it actually, in another, kind of culture, it means musician or artist or poet.

- Oh, beautiful.

Perfect.

- There we go.

Yes.

And that was it.

- That's excellent.

So how long have you, you know, been an outward facing performer?

Because, like, we'll talk about where your music comes from in the house.

But like in terms of, you know, where you need a stage name, you know, where did that start for you?

It's a good question because I definitely was not always headed for public performance.

I just loved music.

But it was around college.

I started a band, and that was still kind of fun and silly.

We played funk and soul and some jazz standards, and I couldn't really sing, but, I had played the violin, so my tuning was okay.

You know, I was like, it's in tune, you know?

But then at the end of my college experience, there was a show, a Radiohead show.

Some of my friends from the orchestra arranged all this Radiohead music for orchestra and voice, and usually I'd be sitting in second violins and they said “Girl, will you get up and sing a song?” And I was like, okay, well, this is Radiohead.

We don't, you don't... One does not casually cover Radiohead, right?

So I went I found a vocal coach, who had taught Thom Yorke and, Well, yeah.

- Why not?

I mean, go to the, just, you know, go straight— don't go through the middleman, go to the source.

Judith Mok, and she in my first lesson, I remember we were singing.

We were actually singing “Down to the River to Pray” Oh, really?

Which is really crazy.

Wow.

Yeah, I just realized that.

Wow.

And I had this very physical, visceral, opening experience where I kind of found myself crying, and it's like something just unleashed.

And I thought, oh, I think I'm supposed to be a singer.

And from that moment I was— I finished my degree, but I just knew something had shifted and I needed to change the course of my life.

- Right.

And so I was pondering all of that and practicing and trying to write little songs on the way to work.

And I said, okay, I need a stage name because I'm not ready to fully leave my job, but I want something to step into.

So that's where... it was a very considered process.

♪ [humming a tuning note] ♪ As I went down in the valley to pray Studying about that good old way And who shall wear the starry crown?

Good Lord, show me the way.

Oh, mothers, let's go down Let's go down Come on down.

Oh, mothers, let's go down Down in the valley to pray.

As I went down in the valley to pray Studying about that good old way And who shall wear the starry crown?

Good Lord, show me the way.

Oh, sisters, let's go down, let's go down Come on down.

Oh, sisters, let's go down Down in the valley to pray.

As I went down in the valley to pray Studying about that good old way And who shall wear the starry crown?

Good Lord, show me the way.

Oh, brothers, let's go down, let's go down Don't you wanna come down?

Oh, brothers, let's go down.

Down in the valley to pray.

As I went down in the valley to pray Studying about that good old way And who shall wear the starry crown?

Good Lord, show me the way.

Oh, mourners, let's go down, let's go down Come on down.

Oh, mourners, let's go down Down in the valley to pray.

As I went down in the valley to pray Studying about that good old way And who shall wear the starry crown?

Good Lord, show me the way.

You were saying as a singer that was your moment, right, when you were in that lesson.

But like before then, what role did music play in your life?

It's funny because I don't remember a time when I didn't have music in my life.

It was just always something that I did.

No matter what was happening, and that was definitely my mom's influence, she drove us to all the lessons.

But some of my earliest memories are when we lived in London and I was a child, where my younger siblings were born, and I was getting singing lessons then, and my dad has a tape of me saying, “I want to hear my voice on that radio!” - Wow!

English accent and everything.

Full English accent!

- Oh my god.

That's amazing, to have that.

Yes.

And I played the violin.

And I remember leaving my violin on a bus and on the train as a kid, you know?

And I did Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, the Irish music schools across Ireland and orchestra and then piano.

And there was always music in every bedroom.

We all had our own speaker systems.

So we were, all the kids, we were all listening to music.

So it was just— I never knew a life without music.

So I didn't think you needed to become a professional because you just play it, right?

Right.

And then I kind of realized in adult life, oh, you could this can be your job, you know, which is a funny way to come into it, I suppose.

To, to shift.

- Yeah.

I think it's good, though.

-Yeah.

-I think it's— because then you're doing it pure, kind of pure.

And then— “Oh, I can make money?” So it's cool.

It's, I think it's a good— It's a good way.

How old were you when you moved to Ireland?

Yeah -Yeah, from England.

I was, five—five going on six.

So.

Yeah, I started in first class.

- Okay.

My mum wanted to come back to Ireland and raise us here, which I'm very grateful for.

Because we had a lovely childhood in Kildare.

A very safe place, and lovely kids.

And just growing up, being an Irish— simple Irish kid.

Obviously with this very complicated background.

My dad is from Sierra Leone, and growing up I remember, my earliest memories are in London.

So a lot of our Sierra Leonean family were in London and we had, it was, London is so multicultural.

And there's so many kids from all over the world.

And then we moved to Ireland, our little gorgeous, sleepy town of Maynooth, which is famous for its university and seminary.

But loads of great music, great kids, and then when in later years, my parents just felt like they really wanted us to live in West Africa because we were growing up pretty much the only black kids in the town, bar one other family, Especially at this point, which would have been... ‘90s.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

So there was one other family who were half Sudanese and they're a really beautiful family.

We were great friends and— but there is that feeling that, like, you're just so... there's this huge part of you that's so visual.

I mean, there's all of that.

You, you know, And I sort of— - You can't escape it.

You can't escape it!

It's there every day when you wake up and when you go to sleep.

- Yep.

And I'm glad they made that choice, because it was very— We moved when I was 12, and that was a hard move because I was getting really attached to my friends, my life.

Of course.

But, as you know, Leonard Cohen says that's what lets the light in.

So we spent four years living in West Africa, in the Gambia, and then in Sierra Leone.

Once it was safe to move there, after the war.

Where my family are from.

So that was a really formative, dramatic, traumatic experience.

- Wow.

What a what a change.

- A huge change.

I mean, I still remember getting off the plane into Gambia and, my first, probably my first poem in my teens was about that, because I remember these rolling green hills, and horses in fields across Kildare, and then you just land, you're off the plane and the heat just hits you.

- Yes.

And it's red.

Everything's sand, and red, and brown, and loud, and the the sights, the smells, everything.

The voices.

It was huge and.

Yeah.

And you think “This is me.

This is half of me.” So that experience in Africa was very profound and life changing and, and hard, but also wonderful because I do think it's important to be in touch with all of those aspects of you and who you are because they form you, whether you pay attention to them or not.

They form you.

And then we visited Senegal and then in Sierra Leone, we were in Freetown, but we traveled all over the countryside, and Yeah.

- Is that, is Freetown, is that where your dad was from?

No, he's from the countryside.

- Oh.

With the diamond mining district.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Which we also visited, which was so profound as well, because the war over that kind of changed the whole nation.

And it's still reeling from that period.

So, a fascinating time in the country's history because he knew a very different place growing up.

And his dad, like, used to play organ in church.

And, you know, my, some of my uncles and aunties all sing, and this kind of thing, but, there's so many Sierra Leoneans who are scattered across the world, and it's a— in a very interesting place as a nation right now.

So, it was cool hearing his stories about it and then seeing the chaos that war creates and how everyone has to pick back up after it, pick back up culture.

So there was no space for art when we were living there, because people were just trying to figure out - They're trying to live.

- Just trying to live.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was kind of a hectic time.

♪ [Sings in Sherbro and Mende] ♪ Dealing with your father's side for a second, Can you tell me your journey to decide to sing in the language of his people and where he's from?

Yes.

Yeah.

Sherbro.

That was a very, again, quite an organic decision.

And it came from a moment of profound, what I would call, compassionate grief Because a friend Was in the process of losing his mom to an illness, and we knew she was going to pass.

A nd he was going through this.

He's a musician friend of mine, and I wanted to give him a gift without words.

There were really no words for that scenario or situation, and I always— I would think, like, how can I say something to him in English in the same language I use to order pizza?

You know, I just couldn't find a way to send a card it all just felt too light.

So I wrote the music first.

And I did write a poem in English, and I went to one of my aunties.

She's one of my elder aunties who still speaks Sherbro because the Sherbro people are dispersed throughout Sierra Leone and the world.

So the language isn't as active as it once was.

But she's a speaker, and I asked her to help me translate the lyrics into Sherbro, and she also taught me a couple of songs in Sherbro and Mende, which is another language from my family's tribes.

And yeah, then “Cortège” came into being.

And it felt so like it... landed.

- Yes.

In that, because it's beyond I think when people hear something they don't understand, they just allow the music to take them over and the meaning is always transmuted somehow.

For me, that song always speaks to— There will always be pain There will always be suffering.

As long as we're on earth, and we do what we can to alleviate it and make our way through it.

But also, there's so much light and so many light workers and people and moments to keep us hanging in there.

So it's that kind of balance of, of darkness and light, and we're always playing out in a subtle way as human beings.

It's the human experience.

I think we get our courage from hoping towards good times again.

-Yeah.

And trusting and having had good times and light in, in life.

Believing for the best.

That makes us see the really difficult times through.

At least that's what we hope for.

-That's what gets us out of bed.

For sure.

Where does Irish, you know, what place does it hold in your life?

A very interesting one because yes, I took Irish all the way through and then dropped off a little bit when we moved to West Africa.

But I started learning again when I came home.

And I guess the Irish in general, we have a very complicated relationship with it because of our colonial past, and it is blossoming now in a new way.

And there are so many new folk projects and rap projects projects and people speaking like Kneecap that come to mind who are using Irish for their musical expression.

And it's from a very natural place.

It's not forced.

So I think there's been a resurgence and I myself have had a resurgence in wanting to learn it and I work— I've worked a good bit with Colm Mac Con Iomaire, the fiddle player, and he's a native speaker.

And so he's very inspiring to me because he always makes me and, I know, others feel like “This is yours.

You've just forgotten it.” -Right!

Yeah, just forgot.

And so every time I'm with him I learn a little bit more.

And he's had me sing in Irish when we did a show in New York together.

And over the years, I'm learning more and more Irish songs and it's there's maybe giving yourself— myself— the permission to embrace it and feel like it's mine and like it's all of ours.

It's something I really, in the longer term, want to explore a lot more of because of exactly that.

The songwriting and the “song telling” is so different.

The storytelling is different in a different language.

♪ ♪ The night is beautiful So the faces of my people.

The stars are beautiful.

So the eyes of my people.

Beautiful also is the sun.

Beautiful also are the souls of my people.

Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field frozen with snow [Hums]