On April 27th, Rhiannon Giddens took the stage at a sold-out hometown performance at DPAC in Durham, NC, to announce the launch of the Biscuits & Banjos Foundation. The announcement comes one year after the inaugural festival. This non-profit is dedicated to celebrating the African diaspora’s role in creating American identity and culture through music, literature, food, and community.
The Foundation envisions a world where the full story of American music, food, and culture is told, and where the communities that created it are resourced, viable, and thriving.
Last year, the festival brought thousands to Durham for a citywide celebration of Black music, art, and culture. Over three days, the city hosted performances, workshops, jam sessions, culinary events, and more.
Building on the mission-driven work that has defined Giddens’ career, the Foundation will serve as a long-term home for cultural work that is too often unpaid or underfunded, investing in Black-led traditions and the artists, culture bearers, educators, and communities who sustain them.
Its programming traces the roots of American music and culture back to the people and communities of the African diaspora, contributions that have been erased, exploited, or forgotten. Through concerts, community gatherings, educational projects, funding initiatives, and partnerships with artists and organizations across the country, the Foundation creates opportunities for audiences to engage with a fuller, more honest history of American culture, while taking meaningful action to support the communities it comes from.
To do that work, the Biscuits & Banjos Foundation will:
- Invest directly in Black-led artistic programming
- Support cultural education
- Produce and support community engagement events
- Partner with organizations doing parallel work
As a first step, the Foundation will provide Black music education organizations with banjos, expanding access to instruments and supporting the next generation of players and tradition-bearers.
The Biscuits & Banjos Foundation launched with the generous support of partners who believe in this work and helped make the 2025 founding event possible. Major support was provided by the WMG BFF Social Justice Fund, Ford Foundation, North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, Duke Arts and Duke Community Affairs, Tejemos Foundation, Harper House Music Foundation, Red Light Management, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Danielle Rose Paikin Foundation, Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, City of Durham, and Durham County along with a host of individual donors, foundations, sponsors, and civic partners.
Learn more at biscuitsandbanjos.com.
