Last year, communities celebrated the 50th anniversary of hip hop. Over the past half century, hip hop has gone from a marginalized art form to a mainstream powerhouse. It developed in major metropolitan centers like New York, Los Angeles and the South, but took root in Appalachia, too. Folkways Reporter Vanessa Peña reports on hip hop in West Virginia.

Pop into just about any coffee shop in Appalachia and you’ll find locally inspired stickers for sale. Folkways Reporter Maddie Miller got curious about the stickers at her neighborhood coffee shop — ones with phrases like, “Worn plumb out” or “Fiddle Fart.” They’re designed by Elizabeth Elswick, who’s built a merchandising business in St. Albans, West Virginia, called Hippie’s Daughter.

Gathering wild foods has long been a way to put food on the table in the Appalachian mountains. In recent years, the practice has gone digital, with online communities devoted to foraging in the wild, springing up like wild mushrooms after a spring rain. One woman in eastern Kentucky is sharing what she knows (and some humor) with the TikTok generation through an account called “Appalachian Forager.”

The Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival happens every Memorial Day weekend on the grounds of a scenic state park. It’s a four-day celebration that culminates with an exquisite tradition: the Grand March, a dance that has been taught to Kentucky college students in Pineville since the first festival in 1931.

Asheville, North Carolina has an eclectic dining scene and one of its “hidden” gems is Neng Jr.’s. It serves elevated Filipino cuisine in a little restaurant that’s tucked away in an alley on Asheville’s artsy West Side. Folkways Reporter Margaret McLeod Leef visited and brings us this story.

For Sue and Stan Jennings, woodworking isn’t just a way to make a living, it’s a way of life. What started out as a passion for the craft was born out of necessity. Over the last 30 years, the Jennings have developed a thriving business making wood objects called treenware — small wooden kitchen utensils. 

Every spring, violets bloom across Appalachia, a carpet of purple, white and yellow. These unassuming flowers do everything from spruce up a cocktail to fight cancer. Here are a few of the ways herbalists use them for food and medicine.

In 17th century Europe, caned chairs were all the rage. You know the kind — a wooden frame with a seat woven onto it. Nowadays though, you don’t see many caned chairs around. That’s because cane doesn’t last forever. Eventually the material breaks down and needs to be replaced. Here at the Seeing Hand Association in Wheeling, West Virginia, folks are giving new life to these old chairs, and finding community along the way.

Here’s a story about a unicorn. Well, it’s really a story about an artist in Appalachia who lost her mojo. And it’s about the woman who helped her get her mojo back. With the help of the unicorn.

In walked Travis Stimeling. Burly and ebullient, Stimeling grew up playing guitar in church as a child in Buckhannon, West Virginia, then went on to study trombone in college. That eventually led to a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a teaching gig at Millikin University in Illinois.

On a foggy morning, Angela Wynn heads into the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. Normally, she’d be starting a day of work as a housekeeper here. But today, she’s at the school for a different reason. She’s here to learn how to cut out wood blanks from Richard Carter, a longtime Brasstown Carver.

Inside the Appalachian mountains of Institute, West Virginia lies one of the nation’s leading public institutions of higher education for African Americans. In 1891, West Virginia State University (WVSU) was founded, and it is full of rich history and cultural traditions. One of the school’s biggest traditions each year is Homecoming. The annual week-long celebration is filled with on- and off-campus activities. The step show is always a crowd favorite.

High Street in Morgantown, West Virginia is a bustling strip of activity. On any given day, university students and locals can be found enjoying the many restaurants, bars and special events that downtown has to offer. Tucked away off the main drag is a place called Yama. It’s a cozy diner that’s been serving up authentic homestyle Japanese food since the 1990s. 

Western North Carolina is home to one of the largest Hmong populations in the United States. Many Hmong families find ways to honor their culture through food. Tou and Chue Lee, owners of Lee’s One Fortune Farm, are one of those families.

Elizabeth ‘Jayne’ Henderson is a notable luthier who is following in the footsteps of her father, famed guitar builder and musician, Wayne Henderson. Jayne is maintaining the family tradition, but doing it her way.

There’s nothing hotter than a high school sports rivalry. For Mason Adams, that meant the Alleghany Mountaineers versus the Covington Cougars. Adams was a Mountaineer, and beating the Cougars was a top priority in every sport — but especially in football. 

On a cold December night in Asheville, North Carolina, a group of about 20 people gather on a stranger’s front porch. Some of them have come together for the past decade to celebrate the holidays, build community, and, most important, wassail.

In the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, jobs are scarce, and an opioid crisis continues to inflict pain throughout the region. But where many see hopelessness, Doug Naselroad, a master luthier from Hindman, Kentucky, sees an opportunity to help those in need.

Square dance calling — the spoken instructions said over the music — makes participation easy. But there are other aspects — like the prevalence of gendered language such as “ladies and gents” — that can make square dancing an unwelcoming or confusing space. One group of friends in the Appalachian square dance scene are taking action to make the tradition more welcoming for all participants.

In a classroom in Fairmont, West Virginia, a diverse group of students has gathered to learn how to play an unlikely instrument: the spoons.

If you’ve been involved in the punk or art scenes, you might be familiar with zines. A zine, as in magazine, is a self-published pamphlet or brochure, or even a booklet. Some are very low-tech and rudimentary, and others are elaborately designed works of art. They’re all unique, and reflect the people who make them. 

Quiltmaking is an artform that has been passed down for generations throughout Appalachia. But a few years ago, local community activist Emily Jones Hudson noticed that quilting wasn’t as popular as it once was, particularly in Hazard’s Black community.

From creamy macaroni and cheese to fried chicken feet, soul food has brought happiness to families and individuals throughout the world. Soul food is typically associated with states in the deep South, but the cooking style is traditional in the Appalachian region, too.

On an overcast but hot morning, a mushroom hunt began with a car ride to a secret spot near the home of West Virginia master naturalists Shawn Means and Amy McLaughlin. The pair run a boutique vacation rental called Lafayette Flats in Fayetteville, next to the New River Gorge Natural Park and Preserve.

Drive through Charleston, West Virginia any day of the week, and you’re bound to come across a sign advertising a local fish fry. Within Charleston’s Black community, fish fries have been a time-honored tradition for generations. Our Folkways Fellow Leeshia Lee grew up in Charleston. She says that it was common to see friends and neighbors hosting fish fries — they’d sell fish dinners as a way to raise money for different needs. In this special report, Lee shares her experiences with fish fries, and visits with one of Charleston’s best fish fryers.

For nearly 100 years, Jeanette Wilson’s family has used poetry to share stories of African American life in southwest Virginia. Now those poems are reaching a wider community – and a new generation.

In a dining room in a tidy, little house in Charleston, West Virginia, Louis and Sonny Argento introduce us to the Argento family sausage — a recipe that has brought pride and acclaim to their Italian clan for nearly a century.

Flat Five Studio has frequently evolved to keep track with the rapidly changing music industry. Now, as a new owner takes the helm, the studio is trying new things while still remaining grounded in the fundamental art of expert music production.

It starts — as all pepperoni rolls do — with the dough. But not just any dough. That’s one of the secrets of Kanawha schools’ pepperoni rolls. They are made using the same recipe as the delicious, soft and sweet hot rolls that accompany every school Thanksgiving dinner and Salisbury steak.

The price of untanned, or green fur, has been dropping steadily as public opinion and markets have turned away from fur products. Animal welfare groups have advocated against trapping and wearing furs. Supply and demand is also impacted by pop culture and fashion trends. International politics, like the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, interrupt trade routes and impact the ability to sell fur overseas.

The back-to-back horrific McDowell County floods of 2001 and 2002 were widely reported by print, radio and TV, but these outlets could not tell the story and bring healing like Alan Cathead Johnston’s ballad, Muddy Water, with healing effects that still endure.

Last year, Folkways Reporter Clara Haizlett met with Ukrainian tsymbalist Vsevolod Sadovyj over Zoom to understand the connection between the Appalachian hammer dulcimer and a Ukrainian folk instrument called the tsymbaly. At the time they met, it was just a few months after the war in Ukraine started. Haizlett caught up with him again this year to see how he and his family are doing.

When Lee Orr goes fly fishing, he doesn’t haul his rod in one of those racks on the front bumper of his pickup. He doesn’t wedge it into the back seat. He doesn’t throw it in the bed to rattle around with his tackle box and cooler. Orr keeps his fishing rods in a hard plastic case.

In late winter in Highland County, Virginia, maple syrup production is a visible part of the landscape. There are maple trees everywhere, adorned with metal buckets and laced with blue tubing.

For some people, taxidermy – preserving and mounting dead animals – can seem a little bit creepy. But for others, taxidermy is a serious art form that’s growing in popularity. One expert practitioner in Yadkin County, North Carolina enjoys sharing her work with others.

Folkways Reporter Zack Harold traced the story of Face Jugs. Examples of this type of art turn up everywhere, but some of them are connected to African Face Jugs, an art enslaved people brought with them to America.

Lots of recipes get passed down and shared in Appalachia through handwritten note cards. Sometimes they’re stuffed in little tin boxes, others in loose leaf cookbooks. For the recipient of such a family heirloom, the recipes can be a way to connect with the past. But some of those old recipes don’t use exact measurements. So how do you know you’re getting it right? For Brenda Sandoval in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, it involved some trial and error, and a little help from a cousin.

General Steak and Seafood’s Yugoslavian stew has been a local favorite for 40 years.

On July 28, 2022 — the day of the flood — James and Ruby Boggs had about four and a half feet of water rushing through their two-story house. They live in an old coal camp called Millstone. It sits on the North Fork of the Kentucky River, and it was one of the communities hit hard by the flood.

Juan Ríos grew up in Mexico City where frijoles charros are ubiquitous. Frijoles charros — or charro beans — is a dish that originated in the ranching communities of rural northern Mexico. Growing up, it’s a dish that Ríos ate regularly. Yet when he opened a Mexican restaurant in Wellston over a decade ago, Ríos didn’t include frijoles charros on the menu. But recently, he’s started offering it.

Sometime in the 1970s, a group of model railroad enthusiasts in Charleston, West Virginia started getting together at the local Presbyterian Church to talk trains. As the club grew they found a bigger space where they could set up little dioramas for their engines and cars to traverse.

With new owners, the Mountain Craft Shop Co. will bring traditional folk toys to a new generation of kids.

The Columbus Washboard Company in Logan, Ohio is the last and only washboard factory in the United States. Founded in 1895, the company has more recently adapted its product to meet the varied needs of its customers, many of whom are musicians.

At Lost Creek Farm in Harrison County, West Virginia, husband-and-wife duo Mike Costello and Amy Dawson hone in on the stories behind recipes served at their famed farm-to-table dinners. Including a curious appetizer that's a mashup of two unassuming food traditions from their childhoods.

To prepare for Christmas, many Orthodox Christians fast for 40 days from eggs, meat and dairy. But that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy something a little sweet. Ginny Chryssikos’ melomakarona fasting cookie brings a bit of ancient history to Appalachia.

If you’ve ever driven in a rural area, you may have seen a wooden quilt block hanging on the side of a barn. There might just be a story behind that block.

“Making Our Future” by former West Virginia state folklorist Emily Hilliard dives deep into the niches of Mountain State culture, from songs of the labor movement to the history of hot dogs. The book was released on Nov. 22, 2022.

On July 28, communities all over southeast Kentucky were hit with unprecedented flooding. People lost homes, cars, family photos. Many musicians lost instruments, and that meant they couldn’t participate in cultural traditions that define their lives. But through the generosity of community members, some musicians have been able to reconnect with their music practice, finding comfort and even joy.

Folkways reporter Zack Harold interviews musician, songwriter, painter and former preacher Abe Partridge about his podcast “Alabama Astronaut,” which chronicles the world of Appalachian snake handling churches and the unique genre of music found within their walls.

For many Black communities throughout the country, music is an essential component of end-of-life rituals. When a loved one dies, families often call upon a skilled singer to perform at a funeral as a way to offer comfort and healing. In Charleston, West Virginia 41-year-old Michelle Dyess is one of the go-to singers that people request when it’s time to plan a funeral.

People love to argue over which barbecue sauce is most authentic — vinegar, tomato or mustard. But Cuz’s Uptown Barbeque in Tazewell County, Virginia, is distinguished by something entirely different.

Breakdowns in the food supply chain from suppliers to our grocery stores have raised concerns and increased prices. Buzz Food Service in Charleston is trying to alleviate some of that in our region by training new, local butchers. Folkways reporter Zack Harold has the story.

Lots of people live with common household objects like furniture, silverware, and rugs. But for many of us, we seldom think about who makes these items, or where to turn when they’re in need of repair. One man in Kingsport, Tennessee has been building and repairing carpets and rugs for over 50 years. For Jerry Machen Sr., the business not only provides him with a livelihood, but also an outlet for expressing creativity and an opportunity for discovery.

People from all walks of life travel from Roanoke, Blacksburg and places far beyond to reach Floyd, Virginia — a one-stoplight town in a sprawling county of about 15,000 people on the Blue Ridge Plateau. It’s home to the Friday Night Jamboree at the Floyd Country Store.

In the late 1950s, the federal government established a program called the "Indian Adoption Project.” Throughout the nearly decade-long initiative, hundreds of native children were removed from their communities and placed with white families. The children were called “lost birds.” Lena Welker, now 66, was one of them.

People in Wheeling, West Virginia are passionate about their pizza. That’s because an accident of history led to a new style. Consider it Appalachia’s contribution to America’s great regional pizza traditions. And it goes by the name “DiCarlo’s Famous.”

You might be familiar with a traditional instrument called the mountain or lap dulcimer. But there’s another, lesser-known dulcimer in Appalachia called the hammer dulcimer. It’s a bigger, stationary instrument that isn’t related to the lap dulcimer at all. In fact, it’s a relative of a Ukrainian instrument called the tsymbaly.

People in West Virginia get into beekeeping for all sorts of reasons: to protect the pollinators, to make lip balm and other beeswax products, and of course, they do it for the honey. Regardless of what brings people to beekeeping, there’s a vast network of support—both formal and informal—to help people learn the craft.

America has a history of segregating Black and white people — in restaurants, schools, buses… even in death. In Bluefield, Virginia, graves of Black residents who helped build the town were neglected for decades in its segregated cemetery. It might have stayed that way had it not been for the efforts of one persistent woman whose family was buried there.

In the early 1930s, the way for a story to go “viral” was by being sung about in a ballad. That’s what happened to Otto Wood, a real-life outlaw who grew up around Wilkesboro, North Carolina. He spent time with the Hatfields of southern West Virginia, became a famous moonshiner, and died in a shootout with police in 1930. Less than one year later, his story was told in the ballad “Otto Wood The Bandit,” recorded by Walker Kid and the Carolina Buddies.

For his day job, Shane Foster is an optometrist in Athens, Ohio. But lately he’s also become a quilter—with help from some friends he’s never actually met.

Appalachian old-time music is a confluence of many cultural traditions, including those of Africans and African Americans, Native Americans, and the Scots-Irish. Yet the contributions of Black and Indigenous musicians have often been denied and overlooked. In Floyd County, Virginia one man is working to amplify the participation of Black musicians in old-time music.

Mothman’s been sighted again in West Virginia. And he’s looking for a meal. He’s part of a new board game that features cryptids and local West Virginia food. Jared Kaplan and Chris Kincaid of Beckley, West Virginia created the game called “…

If you know one thing about the Newport Folk Festival, it’s probably this:In 1965, folk wonder boy Bob Dylan took the stage with an all-electric band. He changed the course of rock music forever, but also enraged some traditionalists in the process. Pete Seeger was ap…

Moorefield, West Virginia, is home to about 3,300 people — about one in 10 are immigrants. That includes a small community from Eritrea and Ethiopia. Many of them work at the chicken processing plant in town, Pilgrim’s Pride. The hours there are long and don’t leave much time for socializing. Still, members of that East African community continue to practice a tradition they’ve brought from home: the coffee ceremony. Folkways reporter Clara Haizlett brings us this story, with help from former West Virginia state folklorist Emily Hilliard.

It takes about 40 hours of hammering to turn a steel drum into a steelpan drum. Although originally meant to hold oil, shampoo or ketchup, the metal tube becomes an instrument uniquely capable of evoking island breezes and a slower pace of life. And believe it or not, th…

“Hang down your head, Tom Dooly. Hang down your head and cry. Hang down your head, Tom Dooly. Poor boy, you’re bound to die.” …

On a bright, sunny day in mid May, my mom pulled up on a gravel road near H.E. White Elementary School in Bomont, West Virginia. A man was waiting, and he stepped up to the driver’s side.“Are you looking for ramps?” he asked.“We sure are,” she replied….

This story is part of a recent episode of Inside Appalachia. …

This story is part of a recent episode of Inside Appalachia. …

This story is part of a recent episode of Inside Appalachia. …

Dean Williams can’t park his Subaru Outback in his garage anymore. He’s turned that space in his Huntington, West Virginia home into a makeshift tomato nursery.Dozens of baby tomato plants stick out of plastic pots filled with Pro-Mix seed-starting soil. Those pots …

Traditional Appalachian pull candy — sometimes called cream pull candy or Kentucky pull candy — is known for two things: its buttery, melt-in-your mouth flavor and the painstaking process required to make the stuff.The candy must include exact ratios of all the ingr…

Four new journalists, folklorists and a chief editor are teaming up with several returning Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Corps members to share even more fascinating stories that explore the region's rich cultural heritage and help break Appalachian stereotypes.

Fried apple pies, empanadas, Cornish pasties, and samosas are all products of different food traditions, but they share something in common: they’re all hand pies.A hand pie is a simply constructed “pocket food” made of a filling wrapped in dough. Hand pies can be…

More than a few families with strong musical traditions call Appalachia home. West Virginia alone has the Hammons and the Kessingers, talented kin known worldwide as bearers of musical traditions. But, for Lucas Pasley, a fiddler, banjo player and singer-songwriter from Allegh…

Appalachia is a tourist destination for people around the world, from the Great Smoky Mountains and Dollywood, to the Mothman Museum and statue in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Natural Bridge, a limestone arch at the southern end of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, has pulled …

Known for its distinct sour taste when it first ripens, and its creamy applesauce when it matures, an heirloom apple with Russian roots still grows in Appalachia. Generations of southwest Virginians and West Virginians have kept these trees alive for more than a century. The grow…

Ginseng, Goldenseal, Cohosh, Bloodroot, Ramps – all plants native to Appalachia and all appreciated around the world for their medicinal and culinary properties. In West Virginia and other parts of Appalachia, these plants have been harvested in the wild for generations. But…

In a quiet neighborhood in southeast Ohio, Talcon Quinn and her 12-year-old apprentice Juniper Ballew have revived an age-old tradition with just three ingredients: a deer skin, some water and a handful of animal brains. They have transformed a hairy, fleshy animal skin into b…

Shape-note singing has deep roots in Appalachia and the American south. Popular first in 18th and 19th-century New England, shape-note singing is a tradition that relies on group participation. But what happens when groups can’t get together and sing? In a special report exp…

As part of our Inside Appalachia folkways project, we have been exploring Appalachia’s unique connection to Wales. Both regions mountainous landscapes, a history of coal extraction, folktales and it turns out, music. There is a growing community of musicians from…

The West Virginia Dance Company, based out of Beckley, W.Va., often performs dances that tell stories about social or cultural topics in the Appalachian region. One of their recent performance pieces, …

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians have been making baskets for centuries. While it is an old artform, basket makers are resilient — adapting to changes not only in their craft, but their traditions to…

Before the pandemic hit, our Inside Appalachia team was planning a reporting trip to Wales as part of our ongoing folkways project, as the country has a strong historical connection to Appalachia that we wanted to explore. The trip’s been postponed, but in a special r…

The Hammons Family of Pocahontas County, West Virginia are known around the world for their distinctive old-time music that reflects the early Appalachian frontier of West Virginia.  Nine members of the Hammons clan, Edden, Pete, Maggie, Sherman, Burl, Lee, Currence, Mint…

Girls Rock Whitesburg in Whitesburg, Kentucky is a music camp for female, gender-fluid, non-binary, and trans youth. Over the course of a week campers learn an electric instrument, form a band and write songs. At the end, they perform in front of a live audience. While the cam…

Just outside Fayetteville, West Virginia, there’s a 42-acre farm that has just about everything — chickens, lambs, sheep, produce and dogs. The latest addition is a litter of Great Pyrenees puppies, who will become guardian dogs for the sheep.Christine Weirick owns and…

CHARLESTON, W.VA. — Despite social distancing limitations that meant reimagining an in-person training for the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Corps Project, 12 storytellers are now off and running (from a safe distance, of course) to gather and share unique stories of …

When Brady Walker first learned that some people go hungry, without a meal, he was four years old. And unlike most kids his age, he decided to take action.Brady lives in Mercer County, W.Va., but he had a family friend named Ursula Candasamy, who has since passed away, …

As the number of coronavirus cases have quickly grown across the nation, including in West Virginia, leaving the house has become increasingly discouraged. In fact, the White House Coronavirus Task Force …

In March, West Virginia saw 90,000 unemployment claims. In a typical month the state averages 5,000. According to the …

Kerri Namolik lives in Shepherdstown, W.Va. with her husband and two daughters. She is an assistant professor for Blue Ridge Community and Technical College and is working from home because of the coronavirus pandemic. But like many parents, she has also found hers…

For the past two years, West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia team has been working on a folkways project that focuses on artisans and craftsmen within Appalachia.For many of these people, their art or craft is their primary income, and a lot of them d…

For the past few months, West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia Folkways Project has cultivated a connection between two groups …

These days, kids are spending less time exploring the outdoors and more time in front of screens.A 2019 report by the independent non-profit …