Some distances cannot be measured in miles. For the children of Nigerian immigrants raised in America, the gap between who they were told to be and who they became is emotional, cultural, and deeply personal.
Between Rhythms is a feature documentary that follows Dr. Omotayo Banjo, a Nigerian-American scholar whose parents left Ogun State for Washington, D.C., decades ago with every intention of going back. They never did. What grew in the space between leaving and staying was a generation of children who inherited a homeland they had never touched, and a country that didn't always know what to do with them.
What Dr. Banjo did not expect was for the Motherland to come looking for them.
Over the last decade, Afrobeats has moved from the streets of Lagos to the charts in every major market worldwide. Nigerian popular culture is reshaping how Black Americans see themselves, how they celebrate, how they grieve, and how they define belonging. This is not a coincidence.
Blending personal memoir, cultural scholarship, and intimate community storytelling, Between Rhythms captures this precise and unrepeatable moment in Black diasporic identity. It follows Dr. Banjo not only as a researcher trying to understand the phenomenon, but as a mother raising an American-born Nigerian child in the middle of it. The film asks the questions her generation was never given language for: Where do you belong when you were shaped by two worlds? What does home mean when it was chosen for you? And what does it mean to finally feel found?
This is a story about memory and music, about parents and children, about culture as a lifeline. It is for every second and third-generation Nigerian-American who has ever code-switched between school and dinner tables, yet felt the weight of carrying more than one world inside them.
The second-generation experience has been studied, debated, and theorized, but it has rarely been felt on screen with this kind of specificity and care.
There are millions of Nigerian-Americans and Black diasporic Americans who grew up translating themselves, code-switching between their parents' world and the one they were born into, never fully seeing that tension reflected back with honesty and dignity. Between Rhythms does not treat that experience as a problem to be solved. It treats it as a story worth preserving.
Beyond the personal, this film documents a cultural shift that is already happening, whether we record it or not. Afrobeats is a bridge, not a fly-by-night trending moment. That bridge is being built, right now, in real time, across living rooms and concert venues, family dinners and diaspora group chats. It deserves to be documented. This film is doing that work.
When it is finished, Between Rhythms will exist for the scholars who need it in a classroom, the second- and third-generation child who needs it as a mirror, and the parent who finally sees their sacrifices reflected in something beautiful.
We are living inside the exact moment this film is about.
Afrobeats has become a global phenomenon, with Nigerian artists sitting at the top of international charts, soundtracking American summers, and reshaping what popular culture sounds and feels like. This is a seismic cultural shift, and it is happening in real time.
At the same time, the conversation around identity, belonging, and the diaspora has never been more urgent or more visible. Second-generation Americans are finding language for experiences their parents could not name. Black Americans are tracing cultural lineages that were severed. The reconnection is happening in music, in fashion, in food, in film.
In five years, this moment will be a part of history. Between Rhythms exists to capture it while participants are still in the midst of it. There is no better time to tell this story than now. Because now is exactly what the story is about.
Independent documentary filmmaking is one of the most resource-intensive and underfunded forms of storytelling that exists. Stories like this one, rooted in the Black immigrant experience and cultural identity, rarely receive the institutional backing that mainstream narratives do. That is exactly why your support matters.
The funds raised through this campaign will go directly toward production costs, including camera equipment, travel to key interview locations, archival licensing, original score development, and post-production. Every dollar brings us closer to a finished film that can travel to festivals, enter classrooms, and reach the communities this story belongs to.
We are not asking you to fund a concept that is not already in the works. The team is assembled. The interviews are taking place. The vision is clear and Dr. Banjo's story, along with many other second-generation Nigerian-Americans, is ready to be told. What we need is our village behind us to make sure it reaches the audience it deserves.
When you back Between Rhythms, you are investing in a mirror for second-generation Americans who have rarely seen their full complexity reflected back at them with care and intention. You are preserving a cultural moment that, without documentation, risks being celebrated everywhere except in the archives.
Help us make sure this story exists.
$15,000 | THE SCORE At this level, we commission an original musical score that weaves Afrobeats rhythms, jazz influences, and traditional Yoruba instrumentation into the film's sonic landscape. Music is the heartbeat of this story. At $15K, we make sure it sounds like it.
$20,000 | THE CIRCUIT At $20,000, we fund a full festival submission strategy, including submission fees, press materials, and travel to key festivals so Between Rhythms can compete for the visibility it deserves on the international stage. This tier puts the film in rooms where distribution deals are made and cultural conversations are amplified.
$25,000 | THE CLASSROOM Education is one of the most powerful distribution channels a documentary can have. At $25K, we develop a companion curriculum guide in partnership with educators and cultural scholars, designed for university courses in African American studies, diaspora studies, media studies, and sociology. This tier ensures the film becomes a teaching tool, not just a theatrical experience.
$30,000 | THE RETURN At our highest stretch goal, we fund a community screening tour that brings Between Rhythms directly to the diaspora communities at the center of the story, including Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Houston, and Lagos. These are not just screenings. They are homecomings. This tier closes the loop on everything the film is about.