This short little two part riff of an unnamed song is one of the earliest examples of black banjo music on the American continent. It was transcribed by Frank Converse in the 1850s from an unnamed black man he learned it from. In his transcription he quotes the man saying" Let me throw the banjo out for tune." The song itself is played in Double C which in the 1850s was out of tune from the standard tuning of the time (gCGBD).
Frank describes the player as using a two finger up-picking style, which is completely different than the stroke style we associate with the period. The tuning, the notes played and the finger style point to a connection to later white working class Appalachian playing though the song is much more syncopated than the driving sound that characterizes later Appalachian banjo music. This song exists as evidence of a direct exchange between white and black players in the 1800s outside of the minstrel industry. It also gives us a rare glimpse of what black banjo in the 1850s sounded like.
This tune was related to me by Pete Ross and Kristina Gaddy who've done a lot of important work in the history of early banjo.