Michael Franti created with Spearhead his very own musical crossover style by blending Hip Hop with Rock, Folk, Soul, Funk, Reggae, Pop and Punk. While other acts, in the wake of 9/11 and the following war on terror, shied away from topical lyrics or went full on anti or pro, Michael Franti had the courage to tackle the issues with heart and soul, even visiting a few of the afflicted regions in the process. His lyrics are less provocation and more thoughtful critique, questioning the status quo and placing value back on human life and human experience. He utilizes a sensibility often lost in modern political discourse, and really makes it hard to disagree by avoiding the pitfalls of being a firebrand. He rather confronts you with sensible and easy to follow logic by speaking from his heart, and challenging you to find the goodness in your own.
Playlist Deep Dive Tuesday! Michael Franti! Spotify
Thoughts On 9/11
I was living in Germany when the twin towers collapsed and left a wasteland of what we understood to be normal. It truly was a different world before 9/11 and everything that followed would be in the sign of those attacks. Sadly, we have not become a better planet for it.
Political discourse was a common factor in German society and human interaction. Life and conversation became consumed with the attacks and the U.S. reaction to it. You have to understand that it is only a 43 hour drive from Munich to Baghdad, which makes it 3 hours closer than Seattle Washington is from my current home of Orlando. People fleeing the war zone would literally pack up their stuff and start walking in our direction. Meanwhile, the American dead and wounded would be flown into Rammstein Air base before they made their journey home or back to the battlefield.
Europe borders on Asia and so the war would become a European problem, whether anyone joined in the fighting or not. The effects would be felt for the coming decades, culminating in young men and women of Asian descent literally getting in busses and cars to drive to go fight for the Islamic state. This would subsequently lead to the mass migration of refugees fleeing the slaughter fields of the Syrian and Iraqi civil wars.
What happened to the anti war movement?
U.S. politics were the issue of the day and there really was no way of escaping it. Much to my surprise and, to be honest, much to my disappointment, this did not seem to be the same for the U.S., and definitely not for the U.S. music scene. With the lone exception of the Dixie Chicks making their now infamous anti-Bush statements, and the brazen and angry shoutings by System of a Down on BYOB, the rest of the music scene seemed content to ponder human love interests and sexual anxiety rather than tackle the human and psychological toll being unleashed by these terror attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
When I first ventured to Bonnaroo in 2004, which at the time was more of a hippy fest than it is now, I was shocked to find very little to no antiwar sentiment or activism. I can literally count the actual incidents of on stage discourse on 2 fingers, and that over a several year span. One such was Eddie Vedder‘s rantings during Pearl Jam’s 2008 set, and the other being an intro video by The Flaming Lips playing War Pigs live while pictures of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld flashed on a humongous screen. Yet, you would still meet soldiers on leave from the war who would jolt at various loud sounds popping out of nowhere as they wore the signs of battle on their faces.
Other than that it seemed the war was not happening. It might as well be on another planet. At the same time a band like Railroad Earth would write a tongue in cheek critique of nuclear armament like Warhead Boogie or contemplate the emotional toll of killing animals in the Hunting Song. However, a critical view of massive bloodshed and destruction being unleashed a couple continents away, leaving indelible marks on the landscape there, and the bodies and minds of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, did not seem to be any lyrical focal point of any band.
Discovering Michael Franti
Around this time I discovered Michael Franti who seemed to redeem this missing topic in American music. He would do it in the most sensible approach possible and was able to tap into a form of philosophy and critical thinking that transcends the capabilities of most songwriters. Many of the songs from his 3 earliest post 9/11 albums remain some of my favorite. I still listen to them to make sense of things on various occasions. Michael manages to tackle the tough issues while always staying positive, often even motivational. He forces you to think, but steers you clear of anger, fearmongering and hostility, emotional manipulations often used by modern media and political speech.
Everyone Deserves Music, Yell Fire and All Rebel Rockers can almost seem like a trilogy, even though they are each distinctly different in their own right. While Everyone Deserves Music moves from more of a social issues record into the political, Yell Fire becomes overtly political. All Rebel Rockers moves back away from the political to the social while beginning to embrace a party feel.
What I Be–Everyone Deserves Music
If I could be the leaves, then like jade I would stay evergreen and Spread my limbs out wide and pull love so close to me and If I could be the roots, I would dig deep like ancestry and If I were the fruits, you’d make the sweetest cherry pie from me and If I could be the night, my moon replace all electric lights and Magic music would transmit from outer space on satellites If I myself could be the ocean, you would feel the motion all the time and If I were the words, then everything that everybody said would rhyme
What I Be is a perfect example of how Michael Franti can merge varying styles and combine them into its very own flow. You catch the positive vibe of an early Arrested Development song underscored with a jazzy rocking groove, eighties hip hop beat, funky bass line, and psychedelic swirling guitars. The lyrical message is Marvin Gaye inspired topical R&B packaged in a melodic rap. The politics of What’s Going On collides with Summertime’s BBQ smoke at an inner city cook out.
Michael Franti introduces you to his philosophy on all things he might be. He delivers a fun play on words and themes, painting a positive world full of sunshine and magic music transmitting from satellites. Michael asks you to look into his mind and soul by inviting you to walk in his bare feet. He muses on what he would do if he could be different elements of nature and life, radiating across the planet like Africa and giving birth to Redwood trees. However, he is aware you have your own story to tell and, to understand it, offers to walk a mile in your shoes.
What I Be is a motivational invitation to join in community and make this world a better place, an idea that could seem overtly SJW and silly coming from the wrong person. Yet from the mind of Michael it is uplifting and motivational.
Time To Go Home–Yell Fire
Doves fly by in the morning light
Leaves fall down on a passer by
Phone call comes and a mamma cries
Tears stream down from a daddy’s eyes
The heart and soul of Michael Franti’s music is hip hop, but he complements it with the sounds of many modern music genres. He adds melody to his poetic speak while mostly refraining from overtly singing the rhymes, however leaves the room for melody if the emphasis requires it. His voice can’t hit all the notes but his conviction does, which lets you forgive the occasional off-key verse.
In Time to Go Home he underscores the hip hop vibe with a reggae bass line and beat, and blends in the occasional rock guitar interlude. He questions the purpose of it all, meaning mainly the War On Terror, with ever so subtle introspection. That is the genius of Michael Franti, that he can basically throw his opinion at you but never really shoves it in your face. Michael asks simple little questions and implies obvious notions, and then pits his message.
In the case of Time To Go Home the essence is to put an end to the war and just go home. He pleads not to take our boys or our girls away. He does this, not by confronting you with your possibly misguided views, but by nailing it down to the essentials, namely our sons and daughters and us grieving parents. It immediately becomes deeply personal, not an ideological battle of opposing views.
He rarely descends into anger in his songs but towards the end he can’t seem to help himself. Thinking of our children, and the children of the war plagued nations, dying, he moves into an angy rap emphasized by a heavy beat and distorted guitar. How many people never saw it coming? – in the towers of the World Trade Center or in the streets of Baghdad?
A Little Bit of Riddim–All Rebell Rockers
Do you remember the time before?
When every day wasn’t news of a holy war
When the people wasn’t ‘fraid to tell you what they want
Everybody in the city always had a home
When a bomb wasn’t going off every day
When the rain didn’t have to mean a hurricane
When the government wasn’t listenin’ to your calls
When a border didn’t have to mean a concrete wall
With All Rebel Rockers Michael Franti starts to move away from the overtly topical subject matter and his more rock oriented hip hop. He starts moving into a more danceable pop groove, which in future records would become overtly pop, bordering on a Disney and boy band style. You can start to get a sense for this with A Little Bit of Riddim, but he still can’t keep the politics out of it all. At least not quite yet. A Little Bit Of Riddim has pop keys and dub reggae beats, and a party refrain, but the verses in between question the current status quo.
It is interesting how he brings up a border turning to a concrete wall, at the time referrencing the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict. Little could he know 9 years later we’d have a numbnut in the white house wanting to put a damn concrete wall on our southern border. Things don’t happen in a vacuum and what happens far away is not an impossibility near here. That’s why topical lyrics remain important, to put restraints on history.
We Don’t Stop–Everyone Deserves Music
They gotta war for oil, a war for gold
A war for money and a war for souls
A war on terror, a war on drugs
A war on kindness and a war on hugs
A war on birds and a war on bees
They gotta a war on hippies tryin’ save the trees
We Don’t Stop is a fun groovy hip hop jam with party vibes and crazy sound effects, but dead serious lyrics. There is a lot to suck in on message while your booty shakes to the groove. Now it could seem cynical to pack a punch in a party song like that, but then again life is cynical. We have insanity happening all around us, whether hidden away in some home, in the dark streets of an impoverished inner city project, a prison on the outskirts of our towns, or a battle field in some far off land.
Yet the girl just wants to dance. So maybe that is why he packages it like that, in a party dance song, hoping the message will sink in through the subliminal. The play on words never gets shallow and is well worth a listen. If you get a chance take the time to read the lyrics.
All I Want Is You–Yell Fire
Wise folks count their blessings
Fools count their problems
But you’re both of them to me
Because you’re beautiful, so freaking beautiful to me
You took all my memories
And all I want is you
All I Want Is You is a slow moving psychedelic Reggae jam, a little eerie, and perfectly made for a smoky juke joint filled with lovers doing the grind to its rhythm. The bass and guitar create a hypnotic scent of the kind emphasized by Michael’s mesmerizing lyrics and strange sound effects. The recurring guitar line is reminiscent of Andy Summers style from the Police–the bed’s too big as endless rows of burning candles fall like dominoes around you.
Everyone Deserves Music–Everyone Deserves Music
Seven in the morn’ step on the floor
Walk into the kitchen and you open the door
There ain’t much left in the bottle of juice
Because the seeds that you planted never reproduced
Computer still runnin’
But your mind has crashed
Because the plans that you made never came to pass
Now you reconizin’ the times is hard
When you tryin’ to take a bite out of your ATM card
Everyone Deserves Music is another crossover rocking hip hop song seasoned with a good dash of early 70ies Marvin Gaye soul. Lyrically, Michael takes on the daily grind of a disaffected society, singing about all our imperfections, yet telling us music can help us through. A little cliche yet still inspiring and fun with its play on words and themes. The bridge definitely borrows heavily from Marvin’s Motown sound before moving back to a mainstream rock groove. Crossing many genres again in its different segments, the styles still blend together like a perfectly mixed cocktail, and the vibe remains infectious. Maybe lyrically less inspiring, yet still a fun groove that’ll get you moving and shaking.
Bomb The World–Everyone Deserves Music
We can chase down all our enemies Bring them to their knees We can bomb the world to pieces But we can' t bomb it into peace Whoa, we may even find a solution To hunger and disease We can bomb the world to pieces But we can' t bomb it into peace
Bomb The World is probably one of Michael’s most ambitious and powerful songs. He lays his melodic rap over an orchestral infused rock pop and soul ballad. His rhymes deliver a strong message against war and the idea that we can bring peace through violence, a crazy notion that seemed to sound logical following the destruction of the World Trade Center. Bush and his cronies literally sold the American public on being able to bring peace and democracy through war and invasion.
To my embarrassment I have to admit I was one of those fooled. Yet, the only thing both invasions achieved was to destabilize the world even more and create ever more destruction and unimaginable violence. The slaughterhouses of the Syrian civil war and the rise of the Islamic state and their perverted violence was a direct result of this insane sentiment, that we could bomb an area into peace. The whole idea is essentially flawed and Michael Franti manages to make it clear in very simple terms, leaving no room for counter argument. We were wrong and the few who took a stand against the invasion were right. You Cannot bomb the world into peace, power to the peaceful!
Hey World–All Rebel Rockers
You know you got to put up a fight.
On a universal mission like a meteorite.
Satellite, laser beam with you in their sights.
And with the patriot act they took all your right.
Don’t ever doubt the power of just one mind.
Or the world-wide power of just one rhyme.
Don’t ever doubt the force of the baseline.
Or a record gone round to burn the house down
Hey World fuses Michael Franti’s understanding of Hip Hop with his folk sensibilities, creating a little hippy ballad questioning the direction of our planet and society, yet always leaving room for hope. Things are not perfect now and may never be, however hope is the last thing to die. You can never stop the fight to make this world better and enlighten the ones who need it most. Michael asks us not to give up on him, by that meaning us all. We need to continue to believe in us.
He knows how to create a sense of community in his songs, making you part of a larger family that has the best intentions to create good. This gives us a combined method to work against our flaws. The simple acoustic guitar and keyboard melody gives Michael’s unpolished voice a positive vehicle to express his frustrations and hopes. What Michael’s voice lacks in tone he makes up with feeling and emotion. He sings of an imperfect world with an imperfect voice lending the song a sense of honesty and grit that leaves no room to doubt its sincerity. A thoughtful ballad for our times that could never be more relevant.
Hope you all enjoyed this selection of part 1. Would love to hear your feedback on all things Michael Franti. Please check out my social media and don’t forget to keep on Rockin’. Cheers!