Ani DiFranco

Angela Marie DiFranco was born in Buffalo, NY on September 23, 1970. She became "Ani" (pronounced AH-nee) when her brother couldn't say Angela.

Her parents are Elizabeth and Dante and one brother (no relation to DeFranco as some believe).

She began playing Beatle's songs in coffee houses she was only nine years old.

Always the prolific writer, she had written over 100 songs by the time she was 19….and didn't even start writing until she was 15. It was at that time she released her first CD, the self-titled "Ani DiFranco". It was also then that she formed her little indie record company, Righteous Babe which is now a multi-million dollar corporation.

She is a punk-folk singer with a distinctive guitar style and personality to boot. Ani has a totally distinctive sound, due to her irreverent lyrics that can be anything from spoken word to serious rock and her guitar strumming style that is unparalleled

She's been nominated for several Grammy Awards. Three time nominee for Best Female Rock Performance (for "Shy", "Glass House" and "Jukebox"); and once for Best Contemporary Folk Album ("Fellow Worker" with Utah Phillips).

Ani married her soundman, Andrew Gilchrist (aka Goatboy) in spring of 1998. It is believed that her CD, "Dilate" was written for him. They are no longer together.

"While she's often been touted as a sort of feminist icon, DiFranco's infinitely more complicated than that. Both self-obsessed and passionately humanist, she's a woman with a willpower that switches off in pursuit of sex and love, and a moral conscience that recognizes this as a weakness. Few artists have written songs of romance that signify on as many levels as DiFranco's."
--Brett Anderson for Launch at Yahoo

From I'm Not a Pretty Girl website

Here's an Ani Video for you. It is from March 2005 when she appeared on CBS's The Early Show during their music segment:

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