Best Of: Rhiannon Giddens / Investigating Diddy’s Rise & Fall

This election season you can streamline your news intake with up first. Our team of reporters and editors works overnight so you can start every morning with three stories you need to know in short episodes, 12-14 minutes long, to save you time and your sanity. Follow up first on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Tanya Mosley in Los Angeles.

That's today's guest, Rihannan Giddens, playing the opening banjo riff on Beyoncé's hit Texas Hold'em. Giddens doesn't usually play pop music. She comes from the black string band tradition, is the artistic director of the Silk Road ensemble and studied opera in college. It's not a usual path from opera to the ban joke. There's nothing about you that is usual, as far as I can tell.

Also, Rolling Stone investigative reporter Cheyenne Roundtree talks about her new book. Bad Boy for Life, which tells the story of Sean Combs across the names he gave himself, Puffy, Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, and Love. Plus, Justin Chang reviews the new film Your Mother, Your Mother, Your Mother, starring Mahershala Ali. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend.

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