Brandi Waller-Pace (they/she) is a Fort Worth-based musician, educator, and scholar-activist. They are the Founder and Executive Director of Decolonizing the Music Room, a nonprofit with a mission of centering Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian voices in music education, research, and performance. Under Decolonizing the Music Rooms Brandi founded and organizes the Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival, created to highlight blackness in American roots music. They are also the Program Manager of the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music’s Black Banjo & Fiddle Fellowship.

Born and raised in Atlanta, GA, Brandi attended Howard University in Washington, DC. earning a Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Jazz Studies. At Howard they were a member of the critically-acclaimed vocal ensemble Afro Blue, sharing the stage with jazz greats Geri Allen, Carmen Lundy, Andy Bey, Jimmy Cobb, Nnenna Freelon, and Bobby McFerrin. Brandi then relocated to Fort Worth, TX, where they began teaching public school music and working as an artist-in-residence at Arts Fifth Avenue performing, teaching private music lessons, and teaching jazz choir through the nonprofit's Summer Playhouse camps for children.

During a 12 year tenure as a grade school music educator, she co-wrote music curriculum for the Fort Worth Independent School District and participated in district and community racial and systemic equity work. In 2019 and 2020, Brandi served on the Texas African American Studies Course Curriculum Advisory Team, which helped formulate curriculum standards for Texas’ first state-approved African American Studies course.

A singer and multi-instrumentalist, Brandi incorporates their proficiency on piano, banjo, guitar, and 'ukulele into their performances. After years of performing primarily jazz, neo-soul, and genre-crossing originals Brandi found the banjo and American roots music, opening a deep connection to traditions of her ancestors. Some of Brandi’s notable performances have been with ArtsGoggle, the City of Fort Worth’s Jazz Series, the Affrolachian On-Time Gathering, Berklee College of Music, and the Fort Worth Django Reinhardt Festival. They have shared the stage with a range of artists, including Jake Blount, Kaia Kater, New Dangerfield, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops.

They penned the song “You Are” that is featured on Nicholas Ryan Gant’s albums Promises and Introducing Nicholas Ryan Gant, lent backing vocals to the track “Once Their Was No Sun” on Jake Blount’s The New Faith, and wrote the song “Captive in a Strange Land” for the inaugural Zora Neale Hurston Summit. They have co-produced and curated artist lineups for events with Bluegrass Pride; The Bluegrass Situation; and PineCone, the Piedmont Council of Traditional Music. They also sit on the board of Folk Alliance International.

As a presenter, consultant, and speaker Brandi engages topics including decolonizing and antiracist philosophies, jazz and the centrality of Blackness in American roots music, culturally relevant practices, organizational equity practices, and curriculum development. Their research and scholarship focuses on antiracism, decolonization, Black feminist thought, and Afrofuturism. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Orff Echo, The Illinois Music Educator Journal, Music Education Journal, The Oxford Handbook of Care in Music Education, The Bluegrass Situation and the Decolonizing the Music Room site.