Artists:Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco is a songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, and activist. Born in Buffalo, New York, DiFranco was singing and playing guitar in public before she was old enough to drive. As a teenager, the poems she'd been writing in "long skinny columns" soon evolved into lyrics, and music became a way for the teenager to talk about the things that mattered most to her: the power dynamics of romantic entanglements, the fragmentation of her family, the choices she watched her friends making, and the state of life in her hometown and her country. She took classes in poetry and politics at the New School, but her real education came on weekends, as she hit the road with increasing frequency and growing confidence. Ani created her own record label, Righteous Babe, eventually turning down legions of potential deals when she realized they had nothing to offer that she couldn't provide herself. In the process, the born performer began to learn her way around the recording studio, too, gradually developing her own innovative means to convey the spontaneity, intensity and wit of her live concerts on disc. She has now released 16 CDs on her own label.

Over the years, Ani has swapped album appearances with Prince and Maceo Parker, produced recordings by Dan Bern and Janis Ian, performed orchestral versions of her compositions with the Buffalo Philharmonic, helped find new young fans for the songs of Woody Guthrie and the stories of Utah Phillips. She has inspired countless other musicians to rewrite the rules of the recording industry by striving for self-sufficiency and refusing to allow art to be subsumed by cold commerce. Through her Righteous Babe Foundation, she's been able to support grassroots cultural and political organizations around the country, lending her time and her voice to such diverse pursuits as opposing the death penalty, upholding women's reproductive rights, promoting queer visibility, and preserving historic buildings in Buffalo, including a long-neglected church currently being transformed into the new headquarters of Righteous Babe.

Ani DiFranco's career has been full of surprises, and she is no stranger to change. But some things remain unchanged, like her commitment to speaking the truth, as she sees it, without fear or concession. She considers it part of her job description to try and reflect real life in her songs. The life of the streets; the life of nations; the lives of people coping with power or its absence, looking for joy through the loneliness and pain and the complexities of relationship; the l ife of the spirit. All these are the stuff of human experience, and human experience is what we all share..