Livestream Carolina Chocolate Drops’ reunion at Rhiannon Giddens’ Biscuits & Banjos fest
The festival is a celebration of Black music and culture, with a lineup that features Americana, country, folk, jazz, blues, and more.
Rhiannon Giddens‘ new music festival Biscuits & Banjos happens this weekend, Friday (4/25)-Sunday (4/27) at various venues in downtown Durham, North Carolina, with a lineup that includes Taj Majal, Leyla McCalla, Don Flemons, Amythyst Kiah, Adia Victoria, Yasmin Williams, Buffalo Nichols, Jake Blount, Christian McBride, and more. The description reads:
GRAMMY & Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens’ new festival is dedicated to the celebration and exploration of Black music, art and culture in her home state of North Carolina. Biscuits & Banjos is a 3-day festival to exchange ideas, expand conversations, uplift traditions, and trace the musical and geographical connections of old time, country, Americana, folk, jazz and blues to highlight their complicated origins. The festival will champion Black artists and creators, offering robust musical performances alongside secondary programming to include lectures, workshops and readings from authors, chefs, visual artists, and more. Black culture is not a monolith, and this gathering will provide an opportunity for those working outside the mainstream to come together in community, as well as showing the similar journeys the culture has taken across music, food, and literature.
The festival will launch in Durham, NC in April 2025 to honor the 20th Anniversary of the Black Banjo Gathering – a landmark musical summit held in Boone, NC in 2005 that became the impetus behind the creation of GRAMMY-winning black string band, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which launched Rhiannon’s career. Rhiannon immediately identified Durham as the ideal location to house Biscuits & Banjos given her personal connection to the city and its diverse reach and thriving contemporary culture, as well as its historical Black heritage.
Tickets to attend in person are sold out, but Rhiannon’s main Carolina Breakdown set will stream live on Veeps. It’ll feature the reunion of the Carolina Chocolate Drops (with Dom Flemons, Justin Robinson, Leyla McCalla, Hubby Jenkins, Súle Greg Wilson, Rowan Corbett, and Rhiannon herself) for their first performance in over a decade, as well as Niwel Tsumbu, New Dangerfield with Demeanor, Rhiannon’s project The Old-Time Revue, and more. It happens on Saturday, April 26 at 6 PM EDT, and tickets to watch are on sale now.
Find the full Biscuits & Banjos schedule here, and stay tuned for our coverage of the festival.
