ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
A documentary featuring two musicians from a small African kingdom shows how country music has transcended international borders.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE RIVER")
DUSTY & STONES: (Singing) Standing next to the river, it's a wonder. That's where we met.
SCHMITZ: Cousins Gazi - Dusty - Simelane and Linda - Stones - Msibi hail from the kingdom of Eswatini, formerly known as Swaziland, in southern Africa. Together, they make up the country duo Dusty & Stones.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE RIVER")
DUSTY & STONES: (Singing) Through storms and bone-dry winter, this river was always there.
SCHMITZ: Joining us now is the director of the documentary "Dusty & Stones," Jesse Rudoy. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, Jesse.
JESSE RUDOY: Hi, Rob. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.
SCHMITZ: So it is not every day that you hear about country musicians from the African kingdom of Eswatini. How on Earth did you find these guys?
RUDOY: Yeah, the process just began with me kind of doing my own poking around the world via the internet, looking to see where there were pockets of country music fandom and where there were country music singers. And I quickly realized that there are country singers everywhere. They're all over the world. But what I also kind of quickly realized was that there was a lot of self-consciousness about being a country singer in, say, Poland or Norway or France. A kind of hallmark of non-American country music was these artists were kind of working double-time in their music to obfuscate the fact that they were not Americans. So they would be singing in sort of put-on Southern American accents or talking about Texas and Tennessee, even though they were from Poland or something.
In the process of doing that research, I just stumbled upon a very cryptically named YouTube video that just said African country music. And it was the music video for Dusty & Stones - the first single they ever released called "Home," which is all about their home village of Mooihoek that they grew up in. And I have to be honest, like, within seconds of clicking on this video, it was so clear that Dusty & Stone's relationship to country music and their approach was just so much different from the other non-American country singers I'd come across.
SCHMITZ: Yeah, there's a degree of authenticity to both of them and how they relate to the music. You know, in the first line of the film, I think it's Dusty who's talking about how Dolly Parton's "Tennessee Mountain Home" makes him think of Mooihoek, his hometown. You know, I was wondering, like, what resonated with you about how these two cousins spoke about country music almost in, like, deeply spiritual, deeply heartfelt terms?
RUDOY: When I first spoke with Dusty & Stones, I learned that they had grown up down a dirt road, spent their afternoons herding the family's cattle. Their grandfather was a preacher - that they went, you know, down to their small church down the road to hear him preach every Sunday. It was so clear that, you know, they were not exoticizing country music in any way.
SCHMITZ: You know, and despite the fact that, you know, not many people are showing up to their gigs in their home country, they are suddenly - out of the blue - invited to play at a Texas music festival. You know, there are several notable country musicians of color, but this is a largely white music genre. And here we have two African cousins who feel country music deep in their hearts. How did audiences in the United States react to that?
RUDOY: When we arrived in Jefferson, Texas, you know, I felt compelled to let them know what was causing me concern in noticing certain things about Jefferson, Texas. And then I think what we do capture in the film - that's, you know, not said explicitly, but I think certainly for an American audience - is you see Dusty & Stone's unfortunate first brush with American racism.
They encounter this band leader who is so dismissive and so rude to them and suggest they don't know how to play their music. He laughs at the name of Mooihoek, their hometown, because he sees it in a song title, and he laughs at the pronunciation. You can really see that they're just so thrown off guard, and it was painful to watch as a filmmaker who was there. While simultaneously knowing that this was making the film more relevant, more interesting and more consequential, it was still so painful to watch them have to have their first brush with, frankly, thinly veiled American racism towards Black people.
SCHMITZ: Yeah, and it's an uncomfortable moment in the film as well. Just watching it is uncomfortable. It's - you know, but it's interesting. Their - at first, of course, their reaction is they're shocked. They're sad. But after a while, they sort of - they start to say, well, look, we're here to play country music, and that's what we're going to do. And so they're sort of down in the dumps after this first sort of initial reaction in Jefferson, Texas. But then they decide to go out at night to a bar, and you almost see an opposite reaction. Talk a little bit about that.
RUDOY: Dusty & Stones walk into this bar. It's a karaoke bar, and it's full of people wearing cowboy hats, singing these famous American country songs that Dusty & Stones love. You know, I had been to Swaziland now several times when we filmed this, and I was seeing this through Dusty & Stone's eyes, who love country music so much but who come from a place where there's not really organically occurring country music.
SCHMITZ: Right.
RUDOY: For them to walk into a bar, where, you know, a guy in boots is on stage just singing the songs that they know, it was like walking into their wildest country music fantasies, and you could see that in their eyes as soon as they walked in there. You know, these guys always felt this intrinsic kinship from afar with people from the southern United States, the people that made country music. And so I think in that scene, you're seeing them get to explore that kinship that - felt from afar in person for the first time.
SCHMITZ: That's Jesse Rudoy, the director of the documentary "Dusty & Stones." Jesse, thank you so much.
RUDOY: Thanks so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE RIVER")
DUSTY & STONES: (Singing) Through storms... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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