In 2011 the Carolina Chocolate Drops accepted a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album with a sound built on banjo, fiddle, a clay jug, a kazoo, and animal bones. This episode traces how Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, and Justin Robinson met at the Black Banjo Gathering in Boone, North Carolina, in April 2005, formed Sankofa Strings, narrowed their focus to the blues- and ragtime-inflected Piedmont style, and learned it knee-to-knee from octogenarian fiddler Joe Thompson.

We look at the banjo's African roots, the band's reworking of Blu Cantrell's Hit 'Em Up Style, the breakthrough album Genuine Negro Jig, and shows opening for Taj Mahal and Bob Dylan, at the Grand Ole Opry, and at Bonnaroo. After Robinson's 2011 departure, the group added Hubby Jenkins, beatboxer Adam Matta, and cellist Leyla McCalla, recorded Leaving Eden with Buddy Mille ...