Poverty: Hole in the Bucket

Michael Franti and Spearhead: Hole in the Bucket

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With and without the sparse-but-funky backing soul of Spearhead, Michael Franti has staked his later career on proactive, politically sensitive songs which cry out to the listener to reconsider his or her relationship to society. Here, in their 1994 debut outing, he uses a chance encounter with a homeless street beggar to muse on the responsibility of the passerby: should we drop the quarter in the cup, and address poverty in passing, even if we have concerns about the recipient's ability to make appropriate choices about the use of that money to better themselves, instead of spending it on canned pork products and wine? Franti says yes. I agree.

Guest Stars: Steady Pull

Jonatha Brooke feat. Michael Franti: Steady Pull

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2001's Steady Pull represented new directions for Jonatha Brooke. She had just completed a cross country move prior to recording the album and was feeling refreshed and reinvigorated in the studio.

The album itself contained many artistic leaps and experiments for Brooke. She co-produced the album, played several instruments (guitars, wurlitzer, finger bells, ukulele, piano, bass), and even arranged strings for the first time in her career. The feeling of experimentation was carried over on the album's title track as well when Brooke enlisted the help of socially conscious hip-hop artist Michael Franti. Franti's involvement is minimal on the track... mostly just a background vocal. His presence, however, lends credibility to the track that the folky Brooke may not have been able to achieve by herself.

Brooke says she just wanted the song to have a nice groove. Franti's funky vocals helped to ensure that happened.

Peace on Earth: Bomb The World

You can bomb the world into pieces
But you can't bomb it into peace...

Michael Franti and Spearhead: Bomb The World (Armageddon Version)

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In a lifetime count of over 300 concerts, from tiny venues to huge stadiums, the best concert I EVER attended was a turn of the century Michael Franti and Spearhead set at the Iron Horse, a small, generally folk-oriented club in Northampton, MA. I remember little in detail but the feeling itself, though I have faint recollections of a full range of sound from beatbox hiphop to Franti's acoustic growl. Mostly, though, I just remember two hours of grinnin' glee and madcap hopdancing on the wooden stairs, eye to eye with Franti himself, the whole crowd pogoing with me as one, until I was sure the whole place was going to bust open and the party spill off to subsume the entire universe.

And it wasn't just me. On the way out of the show, one of the students I was chaperoning lay down in the middle of the street and screamed "kill me now, God, and I can die happy." I picked him up -- after all, I was supposed to be the responsible grown-up -- but I knew exactly how he felt. The best kind of happy drunk, without a lick of liquor.

Since then, I refuse to see Franti again, though I continue to keep his songs in the mix whenever I can, and welcome any opportunity to share the works of this undersung peace-loving, world-changing, roots-showin' hip-hop-slash-folk wild man. Because from here, it's all denouement. NOTHING could match that show. And given Franti's lifemessage -- that music can change the world -- maybe that's the point.

Who said peace songs have to be merry and bright? Christmas is over; let's funk this place up. Play at full volume. Power to the peaceful, y'all.