Where is ani difranco now

Less than two minutes into our interview, Ani DiFranco says the word fuck for the first time, and it sounds like music. Then comes the vowel sound, which has a gentle lilt that mirrors the way DiFranco sings: in dulcet tones that sometimes give way to a guttural growl.

In , Mitchell created a theatrical production based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice called Hadestown. DiFranco and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver both sang on the album, which eventually grew into a full-blown theatrical spectacle that was nominated for 14 Tony Awards on April On the record, DiFranco sang the part of Persephone, the world-weary goddess of fertility married to Hades the current Persephone, Amber Gray, is in the current crop of Tony nominations for the role.

DiFranco is overjoyed to see the project make it to the Broadway stage. I was going to do black jeans and a T-shirt. I told her that it would be very on-brand for her to stick to the original plan. Very lo-fi. She sighed. I mean, I wore a wife-beater to get married. But she never fit neatly into any of those microscenes. She called her songs folk music, but they were often more spiritually akin to Bikini Kill than Indigo Girls even if she was friends with the latter.

She was the less glossy Alanis Morissette, a less yodel-happy Jewel in a open letter to Ms. Her style — confessional, syncopated lyrics, often tinged with insouciance and rage — paved the way for intimate, diaristic weird-girl rock.

Vincent to FKA Twigs. And yet DiFranco and her music always seemed disconnected from the machinery of the music industry. She never signed to a major label, instead starting Righteous Babe at 20 years old, so, as she explains in her book, she would never have to take corporate money to make her music. She stuck to her independent guns long after no one gave a shit anymore about selling out, and she was sexually fluid before that was commonplace.

DiFranco had a front-row seat to those contradictions. She is a foremother, to be sure. But, as she herself acknowledges, her feminist awakening was situational. One of her first jobs was working the 3 a. A desire to connect has made her a consistent ally. Her refusal to sign a label deal necessitated the creation of her own at the age of She runs the label with a mostly female staff.

I harnessed a lot of authenticity along the way. Not a lot of perfection. But freaking real as real could be. She cites her mother, and feminist writers such as Audre Lorde, Alice Walker and Lucille Clifton as her female educators, women who helped her know herself better. That was a hard adjustment. Youth is so confident. Now I do a lot of dancing with myself. Eve Barlow. Reuse this content. The fruitful, East Coast outing took place after DiFranco worked on some initial demos in her home studio; the final results are also bolstered by some remote contributions by by Sickafoose whose credits include work with Jenny Scheinman, Scott Amendola and numerous jazz ensembles and masked-up, in-studio takes by Higgens, who is known for his time with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Warren Haynes and John Medeski.

Indeed, the album has an organic, homebrewed feel, with slide guitar, warm keyboard sounds and more. You know, the synthesizer that makes every sound in the universe? I can never stop myself. She is such a live performer. She recalls those final days of pre-pandemic America, before the world stopped, with the same disbelief as everybody else.

Of course, in hindsight, there were hints of what was to come—the pandemic, the quarantine, the never-ending cancellations of tours and concerts—but, of course, no one expected to be sidelined for this long. Yet, as any music scholar knows, sometimes a tune can take on a life— and meaning—of its own. Looking ahead, DiFranco has several irons in the fire for And in fact, this pandemic has pushed us even further into this home spun [aesthetic].

I love watching national TV shows with people in their living rooms. Everything is very DIY these days, which is cool.