Red Crook-ed Sky American Dance Troupe
Red Crook-ed Sky is a Virginia-based Native American dance troupe with members from over 40 tribal affiliations across the United States and Canada, including Nansemond, Chickahominy, Lumbee, Lakota, Cree, and Haliwa Saponi, all fostering a sense of pride, commitment, and unity. Spanning close to 20 years in existence, Red Crook-ed Sky has performed at over 200 venues across the United States and abroad. Many RCS artists have appeared in films, documentaries, and artworks, earning recognition as Virginia’s premier indigenous dance troupe and among the best in the United States, highlighting their cultural impact and credibility.
Chris Pierce
Chris Pierce is a singular American voice — an artist whose music, rooted in folk, blues, and Americana, speaks plainly yet profoundly to the human condition.
Pierce gained global attention when Neil Young personally invited him to open his Coastal Tour. His co-written song “We Can Always Come Back to This” appeared in three episodes of This Is Us before reaching #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart. His albums American Silence — named #1 Best Folk Album of 2021 by PopMatters — and Let All Who Will earned widespread praise from NPR, Rolling Stone, Forbes, and No Depression. Most recently, his rendition of “Southern Man” appeared on Heart of Gold, a Neil Young tribute featuring Eddie Vedder, Brandi Carlile, and Fiona Apple.
Over his career, Pierce has shared stages with B.B. King, Al Green, Jill Scott, and Blind Boys of Alabama. His new album, Songs for the Heavy Hearted, arrives summer 2026 — fearless storytelling grounded in compassion and shared humanity.
Kyshona
Nashville-based singer-songwriter Kyshona crafts songs that are as much about personal discovery as they are about collective healing. A music therapist turned artist-activist, educator, and speaker, Kyshona blends roots, R&B, folk, and soul with purposeful storytelling. Her work has been praised in outlets like NPR, The New York Times, The Tennessean, The Boston Globe, Rolling Stone, and American Songwriter. She regularly performs on stages and at festivals across the globe and delivered the keynote for the 2023 Fulbright Scholars. Her song “Listen” became an anthem in 2020, and her latest album, Legacy, carries that mission forward — encouraging listeners to heal from the past and find the common threads that connect us to our neighbors. In 2026, she was honored with Folk Alliance International’s People’s Voice Award. With every project, she continues to build a body of work that is restorative, inclusive, and rooted in legacy
Rissi Palmer
Rissi Palmer is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter, cultural trailblazer, and leading voice in contemporary American roots music. Blending Country, Soul, Folk, and Americana, Palmer is known for her powerful vocals, genre-defying sound, and emotionally resonant storytelling. She first made history in 2007 when her breakout single “Country Girl” became the first song by a Black female artist to chart on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs in nearly two decades. Since then, Palmer has built a critically acclaimed independent career, releasing multiple celebrated projects including Revival (2019), which Rolling Stone named one of the Top 25 Country Albums of All Time, The Back Porch Sessions EP, and Best Day Ever, a Grammy-nominated children’s album. Most recently, she has released PERSPECTIVES, a four-song EP rooted in Country music, culture, identity, and lived experience. Palmer has been featured by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Billboard, NPR, Essence, People, The Washington Post, CNN, PBS, and has performed on some of the nation’s most iconic stages, including the White House, the Grand Ole Opry, Lincoln Center, and the Apollo Theater.
Through her Color Me Country Radio show on Apple Music and her nonprofit Color Me Country Foundation, Palmer continues to create meaningful opportunities and visibility for emerging artists of color. In recognition of her pioneering spirit in music and advocacy, she has been recognized with industry honors including the ACM Lift Every Voice Award, a SONA Warrior Award, and the UME Icon Award.
Rissi Palmer’s remarkable career is defined by artistic excellence and cultural influence. With her music and leadership, Rissi is expanding the narrative of American roots music – creating space for diverse voices and elevating community through artistry.
At Farm Aid Family Reunion, Rissi’s Color Me Country Takeover set will feature Virginia-based artists Roberta Lea and Rebecca Porter, backed by her incredible band, The Smoke.
Roberta Lea
American Songwriter Magazine describes Roberta Lea as “a compelling artist” while The Nashville Scene praises her ability to “score hits with her catchy, textured and beautifully sung originals.” The award-winning singer/songwriter released her debut album “Too Much of a Woman” to critical acclaim and punctuated her presence in the industry with a coast to coast tour. Described as “country-neo-pop” with a “delicious, folky flare”, the Virginia native is known as a powerful songwriter and engaging storyteller. Listeners turned fans describe her style as one that fits comfortably between Shania Twain’s fun and catchy pop-country singles and Tracy Chapman’s heavy weight, cinematic chokeholds. As a touring member of The Black Opry, one of CMT’s Next Women of Country Class of 2023 and a voting member of The Recording Academy, Lea is steadily building a successful, sustainable artist career that will be etched in Virginia’s history and beyond.
Rebecca Porter
Born in Guam and raised in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Rebecca Porter writes unflinchingly personal songs that challenge the boundaries of genre and amplify voices often left out of the country canon. With commanding live performances and a cinematic debut album, Porter’s work invites listeners into stories of identity, resilience, and reckoning. Porter’s breakout 2023 EP Queen of the Local turned heads nationwide, earning her a spot in Rissi Palmer’s Color Me Country Class of 2024 and a feature on NPR’s Mountain Stage. While her 2025 debut album Roll With the Punches has earned national and international recognition, including No Depression, The Bluegrass Situation, KEXP, Adobe & Teardrops, Lonesome Highway, as well as two picks for NPR’s Song of the Day.
shirlette ammons
shirlette ammons is a Black queer southern truth teller — a poet, musician, and producer. She is also an identical twin who hails from Beautancus, North Carolina. Given this wild set of identifiers, the thought of being someone else’s “spectacle” is not some theoretical one; she has been “othered” her entire life. Her new album Spectacles, co-produced with Phil Cook showcases her multitudes as songwriter, MC, bassist, producer, and poet, featuring a remarkable creative community including Mykki Blanco, MacArthur-winning poet Fred Moten, Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, and writer Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Ammons is also known for collaborations with Indigo Girls, Hiss Golden Messenger, and Meshell Ndegeocello. An award-winning Cave Canem Fellow with two poetry collections, she has produced Emmy and Peabody Award-winning PBS series A Chef’s Life and Somewhere South, and acclaimed films including Stay Prayed Up (Telluride 2021). She received Black Public Media’s Pitch Black Prize for her documentary short The Hook. Her most recent release is a podcast called Tending where Ammons roamed fields & farmland, sat on porches, and ate at the dinner tables of some of the tens of thousands of Black farmers across the country who were claimants in Pigford vs Glickman, once the largest class action class action lawsuits in US history.
