Rhiannon Giddens, who was a founding member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, is writing a musical based on a series of events in 1898 in Wilmington, North Carolina, and centering it around the music of the time. She says, “for me, the heart of American music is in this moment of white and black sort of coming together. Maybe that’s simplistic, but to me it is a symbol of the best of what we do culturally.”