If you're looking to get funky this New Year's, look no further than Ranky Tanky..."get funky," after all, is literally how their name translates from the Gullah language to English. The South Carolina-based and West African-rooted five-piece will bring their new 2023 GRAMMY-nominated collection to NPR's Toast Of The Nation broadcast on New Year's Eve; sharing some of the sounds and stories that've been passed down in their communities for centuries and generations.

Ranky Tanky are global ambassadors for an underrepresented slice of the American experience heroically preserved in the coastal American South throughout slavery and faithfully carried on by descendants into the present day. For their part, Ranky Tanky have brought Gullah music to PBS Newshour, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and even Preisdent Joe Biden's inauguration.This GRAMMY nomination is their second in four years...in 2020 they became the first ever Gullah group to be recognized with music's highest honor.

In 2023, they'll return with a Best Regional Roots album nomination for their first-ever live album, captured at the New Orleans JazzFest earlier this year (their debut at the festival)...it's a profound document of Gullah music being performed the way it's always been passed down.