Rhiannon Giddens has announced the Biscuits & Banjos Foundation, a new nonprofit organization 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, literature, food, and culture is told — and where the communities that created it are resourced, visible, and thriving.
Giddens revealed the Foundation during her sold-out hometown performance at DPAC in Durham, NC on April 27 — a concert that also marked the one-year anniversary of the Biscuits & Banjos festival, which brought thousands to Durham in 2025 for a citywide celebration of Black music, art, and culture.
Building on the mission-oriented work that has defined Giddens’ career, the Biscuits & Banjos 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.
The Foundation curates programming that 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 Biscuits & Banjos 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…