Ani DiFranco

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Ani DiFranco : biography

23 September 1970 –

Ani DiFranco, [[RZA, and Steve Albini at The New Yorker festival in September 2005.]]

Relationships

DiFranco identifies herself as bisexual, by Kris Scott Marti, November 28, 2004, by Achy Obejas, The Advocate, December 9, 1997 and has written songs about love and sex with women and men. She addressed the controversy about her sexuality with the song "In or Out". In 1998, she married sound engineer Andrew Gilchrist in a Unitarian Universalist service in Canada, overseen by folk singer Utah Phillips. DiFranco and Gilchrist divorced five years later.

DiFranco gave birth to a daughter, Petah Lucia DiFranco Napolitano, Celebrjljlkity Baby Blog. July 3, 2007. at her Buffalo home on January 20, 2007. She married the child’s father Mike Napolitano,Dowd, Kathy Ehrich. People. January 23, 2007. also her regular producer, in 2009.

In an interview on September 13, 2012, DiFranco mentioned that she is pregnant with her second child with husband Mike Napolitano. She gave birth to a second child, a son Dante DiFranco Napolitano, the morning of April 6, 2013.

Music

Guitar style and collaborations

DiFranco’s guitar playing is often characterized by a signature staccato style, rapid fingerpicking and many alternate tunings. She delivers many of her lines in a speaking style notable for its rhythmic variation. Her lyrics, which often include alliteration, metaphor, word play and a more or less gentle irony, have also received praise for their sophistication.

Although DiFranco’s music has been classified as both folk rock and alternative rock, she has reached across genres since her earliest albums. DiFranco has collaborated with a wide range of artists including musician Prince, who recorded two songs with DiFranco in 1999 ("Providence" on her To the Teeth album, and "I Love U, but I Don’t Trust U Anymore" on Prince’s Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic album); folk musician and social activist Utah Phillips (on The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere in 1996 and Fellow Workers in 1999); funk and soul jazz musician Maceo Parker; and rapper Corey Parker. She has used a variety of instruments and styles: brass instrumentation was prevalent in 1998’s Little Plastic Castle; a simple walking bass in her 1997 cover of Hal David and Burt Bacharach’s "Wishin’ and Hopin’"; strings on the 1997 live album Living in Clip and 2004’s Knuckle Down; and electronics and synthesisers in 1999’s To the Teeth and 2006’s Reprieve. Samples from the track "Coming Up" were used by DJ Spooky in his album Live Without Dead Time, produced for AdBusters Magazine in 2003.

DiFranco herself noted that "folk music is not an acoustic guitar – that’s not where the heart of it is. I use the word ‘folk’ in reference to punk music and rap music. It’s an attitude, it’s an awareness of one’s heritage, and it’s a community. It’s subcorporate music that gives voice to different communities and their struggle against authority." by Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers

Lyrics, politics and religion

Although much of DiFranco’s material is autobiographical, it is often also strongly political. Many of her songs are concerned with contemporary social issues such as racism, sexism, sexual abuse, homophobia, reproductive rights, poverty, and war. In 2008, she donated a song to Aid Still Required’s CD to assist with the restoration of the devastation done to Southeast Asia from the 2004 Tsunami. The combination of personal and political is partially responsible for DiFranco’s early popularity among politically active college students, particularly those of the left wing, some of whom set up fan pages on the web to document DiFranco’s career as early as 1994. DiFranco’s rapid rise in popularity in the mid-1990s was fueled mostly by personal contact and word of mouth rather than mainstream media.

DiFranco has expressed political views outside of her music. During the 2000 U.S. presidential election, she actively supported and voted for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader.HackWriters.com article: "".Rolling Stone magazine article: ""Salon.com article: "". She supported Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 and 2008 Democratic primaries. Kucinich appeared with her at a number of concerts across the country during both primary seasons. DiFranco went on to perform at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.