i am sassa

Most musicians who have been around as long as Ani DiFranco has have plenty of stories about hard lessons learned with record labels in the beginning of their career. I don’t think I’ve painted one yet that wasn’t taken for a ride by some label or another. Ani DiFranco is different. She said screw all that noise and made her own record label when she was just nineteen years old. And if that’s not badass enough, she named it Righteous Babe Records. Its logo looks like Rosie the Riveter time travelled to the nineties, got some combat boots, and shaved her head.

Let’s also time travel to the nineties for a sec. Ani DiFranco was a big ol’ role model for me. I was a weird and artsy teenager with a shaved head when I discovered her, and her album covers looked a little bit like a mirror to me. The contents of them felt like an emotional mirror at times, too. But man, she had such a way with words. She blended poetry and music in a way I’d never heard before, or from any other artist since. And she so openly addressed EVERYTHING in her songs. She made anger really, really beautiful. I was so moved by this woman’s music that I inked my chest with a tattoo inspired by hers. She was a symbol of strength and independence to me.

Ani has released over twenty albums, and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard them all. None of them even come close to her first one in my opinion, but I’m guessing that has a lot to do with the sentimentality of hearing her for the first time. The very first song on that album is one I can hear without even playing it. Her music is a really unique blend of folk, soul…really it’s a blend of everything. Even some spoken word poetry (The SLANT!). Regardless of her refusal to bow to a label or adhere to one genre, she was embraced by enough of a mainstream audience to be a Grammy winner. She’s also been given several activist awards. She doesn’t just sing about politics and social movements, she actively supports them with charity concerts, fundraisers, and even her own Righteous Babe Foundation. One super cool example: she raised money to replace the instruments that musicians lost in Hurricane Katrina.

Thank you, Ani DiFranco.