|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Thursday, July 05, 2007 |
 |
Tappin' that Axe: Ani DiFranco
By Image Mag Staff @ 11:31 AM :: 363 Views ::
0 Comments :: Music: Concerts
|
wordplay: Cassie Hood
image: Danny Clinch
"My poet's tongue was never light enough to express all of the sentiments that confounded my brain. I found in my fondness of writing that I was, in fact, never a poet. In my defeat, I decided to leave the penning of poetry to the people who could elegantly verbalize each verse with meaningful aptitude."
Ani DiFranco has seemingly always possessed the divine eloquence to express her every thought poetically. Be it by spoken word or folk singing, her brain never ceases to place irony and sarcasm next to sincerity and suavity. In each word, she forces her listeners to not only hear her, but also think about every injustice in world that she sings about.
Since she was 15-years-old, Ani has been writing her own songs and performing in coffee shops and bars. Her first album came in cassette form in 1990. DiFranco was forced to choose from over 100 songs that she had composed. This album was completely self-released, paid for by her life savings and money borrowed from friends.
Shortly after her self-titled release, she decided to start a record label, thwarting off bigwigs and no names who offered her the riches of the world, and opted instead to have her own imprint that would allow her to follow her own dreams without compromising her values to the capitalistic world of the music industry. She aptly named the label Righteous Records, but soon after the name was changed to Righteous Babe Records. Since then she has released an album almost every year and toured incessantly, only stopping to record.
Regarded by some as a superhero for feminist and gay rights, DiFranco garnered an army of fans who soaked up her every word. In “Not a Pretty Girl” she sings about being a girl who is trying to find her own in this world of sexism and capitalism. It is a song that many feminists have taken as their anthem.
Though many of her songs tackle issues about a woman’s rights, she also sings about racism, selling out, pain, love and many other offenses of the world. “32 Flavors” is a song about identity, “The Million that You Never Made” is about selling your soul for a record deal, “Both Hands” is about love, and “Glass House” is about hypocrisy. Despite the plethora of songs that DiFranco has written, people mostly focus on her fight for woman’s rights.
Using Righteous Babe Records she has supported many grassroots campaigns fighting for abortion rights and gay visibility. She has earned recognition from the National Organization for Woman by winning the “Woman of Courage Award.”
For Ani, making music is to get her point across, to share her talent with the world, not necessarily to make money. She has values and beliefs that flood her music, and she doesn’t take flack from anyone, standing up to her critics with fists held high.
In September, Righteous Babe Records will be releasing Canon, which is being regarded as a career retrospective studio album. It will feature tracks that span her entire career, along with five newly recorded songs. It will be two discs of Ani DiFranco musical history, with 36 songs total. And in November, Ani will release a book of poetry and paintings called Verses, taking her career into new worlds.
She may never make that million that other artists dreams of making, but she does what she loves doing. Her talents speak volumes for her, and her values fight for the freedom she dreams of. For over seventeen years she has been lighting fires in people’s brains, and she’ll continue till those fires burn out. Poetry is her weapon. Music is her life.
July 22nd @ Chatfield Nature Preserve
RighteousBabe.com
|
|
|
|
|
| Comments |
Currently, there are no comments. Be the first to post one!
Click here to post a comment
|
|
|
|
|