Democracy Now! December 13, 2002

9:00-9:01 Billboard 9:01-9:04 Headlines 9:04-9:05 Music Break: Ani DiFranco, singing Your Next Bold Move, from her DVD Render 9:05-9:22 : Today we bring our listeners and viewers an hour with singer, songwriter, guitarist and now bandleader Ani DiFranco. There is a lot to talk about. We last spoke with Ani in May of 2001. Since then, the country and the world have changed. Some 3000 people died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Over 3000 people died in the bombing of Afghanistan. Unknown hundreds of immigrants have been detained and deported. Around a hundred people have been executed by state governments in this country. The stock market has crashed. Over one and a half million jobs have been lost including tens of thousands at Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing and Aurther Anderson. Over 1.3 million people have joined the ranks of people in the US who are living under the poverty line, and the nation s poverty rate is increasing for the first time in eight years. A man who was not popularly elected president has declared war on the world. And Dan Rather, who is arguably the most famous journalist in the country, said of George Bush, "Wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where." Who better to talk all this over with than Ani DiFranco. For our listeners who are still unfamiliar with this musical phenomenon, a little background: Ani DiFranco was born in the blue-collar city of Buffalo, New York. She picked up a guitar at age 9 and a few years later began writing her own songs and playing in local coffeehouses. Ani moved to New York when she was 19 years old. Within a year, she had recorded a few hundred tapes. The tapes sold out, and she founded her own record label, Righteous Babe Records. By 1993, major labels were approaching her regularly and she regularly rejected their advances. President and CEO of Mercury Records Danny Goldberg called Ani DiFranco one of the most brilliant and compelling artists around, a genius." She didn t take the bait. Over the years Ani s music has woven together styles ranging from folk to funk, rock to R and B, jazz to soul. She sings of the political and the personal, of love, sexuality and loneliness, of sexual abuse and police brutality, about the perversion of democracy in America to the perversion of media in this so-called democracy. She has a new poem about 9-11. She went from a woman with a guitar to a guitarist-plus-drummer to a trio to a six-piece band. Now, she has just completed her first solo tour in seven years. Ani tours the US all the time and plays regularly in Europe, Australia and Japan. Ani has released twenty albums and Righteous Babe Records has sold 3.5 million of them. Guest: Ani DiFranco, singer, songwriter, poet, and founder of Righteous Babe Records, www.righteousbabe.com Live Performance: Self Evident, a poem about September 11 (So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter, 2002) 9:22-9:58 : Guest: Ani DiFranco, singer, songwriter, poet, and founder of Righteous Babe Records Live Performances: Serpentine, a new song not yet on any album Anticipate (Not So Soft, 1991) Subdivision (Reveling/Reckoning, 2001) Your Next Bold Move (Reveling/Reckoning, 2001) 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Ana Noguiera and Alex Wolfe. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro and engineer.