Selected Video Resources

Since its inception in 1976, the American Folklife Center has routinely hosted public programs at the Library of Congress in the form of concerts, lectures, panels, and symposia. From 2006 on, most of these public programs have been video recorded and made available online.

Playlists and Series

There are a number of playlists available on the YouTube page that gather videos from certain seasons of our Homegrown Concert series or pull together various lectures as a sampler of the types of topics covered. You can also simply search "folklife" on the YouTube page to pull up hundreds of videos.

It is also possible to view entire series of American Folklife Center videos on the Library's website. Those links are provided below. Many (if not all) of the same videos can be found on the Library's YouTube channel.

Homegrown Concerts and artist oral histories
Over 200 videos of Homegrown concerts and oral history interviews with artists, dating back to 2005. The concerts take place in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium, Whittall Pavilion, Madison Hall, or a setting of the artists' choosing (largely from 2020 through 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic).
Benjamin Botkin lecture series
Videos from lectures, panels, and symposia that AFC has hosted over the years. The earliest videos are from 2005, and go on up through the most recent events.

Homegrown Concert Series

Jake Blount: African American Folk Music
Published/Created: 2023-2-23
A powerfully gifted musician, activist, and scholar of Black music, Jake Blount speaks volumes about the African roots of the banjo while continuing the living tradition of Black roots music. This performance features songs from multiple, recent albums. His 2020 album Spider Tales was named one of the year’s best albums by NPR and The New Yorker, and earned a perfect five-star review from The Guardian. His more recent 2022 album The New Faith is a powerful statement of dystopian Afrofuturism and commentary on the growing climate crisis. This performance demonstrates The New Faith as spiritual music, filled with hope for salvation and righteous anger in equal measure.

Hubby Jenkins: Homegrown Concert
Published/Created: 2021-08-11
Hubby Jenkins is a GRAMMY award winner and multi-instrumentalist who endeavors to share his love and knowledge of American roots music. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he delved into his southern roots by following the thread of Black history that wove itself through America's roots music forms. As an integral member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and later Rhiannon Giddens band, Hubby has performed at festivals and venues around the world, earning himself both GRAMMY award and Americana award nominations. Today he spreads his knowledge and love of roots music through his dynamic solo performances and engaging workshops.

Dom Flemons: Black Cowboy Songs and More from the American Songster
Published/Created: 2020-09-16
Dom Flemons, a GRAMMY award winner, two-time EMMY nominee, and 2019 WAMMIE Award winner, is originally from Phoenix, Arizona, and currently lives in the Washington, DC, area. In 2005, Flemons co-founded the GRAMMY award-winning group, the Carolina Chocolate Drops. He left the group to pursue his solo career in 2014. Today he is known as "The American Songster," since his repertoire of music covers over 100 years of American folklore, ballads, and tunes. In 2018, Flemons released an album titled Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys and this recording is part of the African American Legacy Recordings series, co-produced with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. For over a decade Dom has been doing research on American Folklife Center collections. He was the first artist featured in AFC’s first Archive Challenge back in 2015 (then called the Lomax Challenge), and his repertoire includes many songs and tunes he learned from recordings of master musicians in the AFC archive.

Artist Interviews

Jake Blount: Conversation with the Artist
Published/Created: 02-23-2023
Watch a conversation with Jake Blount and folklife specialist Stephen Winick. Topics discussed are Blount’s musical influences, cultural heritage, and artistic works. Throughout the interview, Blount discusses the role of his identity as a queer, mix-raced, person of color and the importance of representing queerness in the archive. As a skilled musician and a scholar of Black music, he speaks the African roots of the banjo and the complications that arise from building a new tradition in conversation with the past.

Conversation with Hubby Jenkins
Published/Created: 12-9-2021
Watch a conversation with Hubby Jenkins and folklife specialist Stephen Winick. Jenkins is a talented multi-instrumentalist who endeavors to share his love and knowledge of old-time American music. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he delved into his southern roots, following the thread of Black history that wove itself through America's traditional music forms. Topics discussed include his early musical influences, complications of performing with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and the relationship of roots music forms with other genres of contemporary popular music.

Alan Lomax Lecture

African Fiddle & Banjo in Appalachia Lecture by Cecelia Conway
Call Number: AFC 2015/041
Published/Created: 10-01-2015
Alan Lomax Fellow Cecelia Conway delivers a multimedia presentation on the instrumental and musical history of Appalachian traditional music, with illustration from African and Appalachian musicians, instruments, videos, sounds and images.

African-American Banjo Music: Resources in the American Folklife Center

Selected Video Resources

Playlists and Series

Homegrown Concert Series

Artist Interviews

Alan Lomax Lecture