Rhiannon is a truly outstanding singer and musician, and I think her work is wonderful. I've not seen her perform for some years now, so I can't properly judge cnd's post above but, although I'm not a fan of too much preaching from the stage by anyone, I can see why she still stresses those links between bluegrass and Black music. Only yesterday I was following a YouTube comment thread about an old Appalachian song that had been posted, and found some people arguing aggressively that bluegrass and old-time music had nothing to do with African-American music (I would have thought it's beyond question by now) and that to claim the linkage was a 'political' statement. So Rhiannon probably thinks the message hasn't yet got through.