The banjo is almost as symbolic of U.S. culture as the Washington Monument, and, just like the obelisk, it was created by people from the African continent.
That history is what Hannah Mayree, co-founder of The Black Banjo Reclamation Project, wants people to know. So this Sunday, July 13, at 924 Gilman in Berkeley, they’re hosting a Banjo Reclamation Showcase.
The event celebrates five years of banjo-making workshops in the Bay Area and around the nation. In that time, The Black Banjo Reclamation Project has gotten refurbished instruments into people’s hands while providing historical context to those who want to learn the art.
Sunday’s showcase will feature live performances, local food vendors and conversations about the instrument’s history. It caps off a week of cultural immersion, which includes a more intimate gathering on Friday evening at Couch Date in downtown Oakland.
Mayree, who has deep family roots in the Bay Area, says this work to highlight the banjo is about music, history and culture, as well as skilled labor.
A young Mayree first picked up the banjo after the Carolina Chocolate Drops won a Grammy for their 2010 album, Genuine Negro Jig, thrusting Black banjo players into popular discourse.
In the years since, former Chocolate Drops member Súle Greg Wilson worked alongside Mayree with The Black Banjo Reclamation Project. (In 2024, the band’s founder, Rhiannon Giddens, helped usher the instrument into pop culture once again when she played on Beyoncé’s hit “Texas Hold ’Em.” Next week Giddens is set to perform in Santa Rosa, Mayree will open for her. )
Mayree has spent a decade-and-a-half touring, busking and performing at large venues. Often they find themselves having to explain a simple fact: “Not only do Black people play the banjo,” says Mayree, “but it comes from Black people.”