One of the most prolific women in music and a seasoned professional at 34, Ani DiFranco has worked hard to achieve some amazing accomplishments in the music world while maintaining her integrity and connection to her audience.

Ani DiFranco has come a long way from the 15-year-old child of divorce that set off to New York City to make her name in music. A record company owner who constantly tours while supporting grassroots organizations through her Righteous Babe Foundation and a Grammy-nominated musician, she is an American success story in the best way.

When she started her own record company in her hometown of Buffalo, New York at the age of 19, the openly bisexual DiFranco had already been on the road for several years performing with folk artists. Righteous Babe Records was born when she decided to press her own tapes to sell at her shows, and in 1990, she released her first album, Ani DiFranco.

But her record company wasn’t created as much from necessity as from a deep desire to keep her independence and artistic control. As she states in a 2000 interview with Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive, “Maybe the difference is a lot of people perceive it as a means to an end: You're independent because you can't get a major label deal or you're on the way to the big deal, whereas for me it's an end in itself, and there is a lot of political thought that goes behind that decision for me.”

DiFranco has never shied away from expressing her political beliefs. This year she organized the Vote Damnit! Tour and invited numerous guests including Howard Dean and Margaret Cho to attract young progressives in swing states out for voter registration drives. Her lyrics are full of expressions of outrage and encouragement to fight for the rights of the oppressed and marginalized; through her music, she speaks out for women’s reproductive rights, challenges the capitalist structure, eschews racism, and satirizes the hypocrisy of religious fundamentalism.

She has also addressed sexuality in her music, tackling bisexuality early on in her 1992 song "In or Out" with lyrics like "guess there's something wrong with me/guess I don't fit in." The song goes on to expose the pressure she frequently received to be either straight or gay, and her refusal to give in to it:

Despite being very clear about her bisexuality, DiFranco nonetheless caused a stir among her admirers when she married her sound engineer, Andrew Gilchrist, in 1998. The couple has since separated, but this demonstration of DiFranco’s fluid sexual orientation alienated some lesbian fans.

DiFranco has also had to deal with the challenges of listeners and supporters publicly critiquing her evolving looks over time, as her image has transitioned from a shaved-head, tattooed punk to a longer-haired, dress-wearing adult. Her changing look has caused a clamor of accusations from some audience members that she has sold out, but other fans counter that this accusation is asking DiFranco to stay fixed in a specific moment in her life.

But no matter what she looks like or with whom she has relationships, audiences still turn out in droves to hear this self-made powerhouse do what she has always done: sing from the heart about her own truths, and play the guitar in her unique percussive style that has spawned a million imitators in coffeehouses across the country.

Her voice is best described by Vanity Fair magazine as “like the murmur of a lover who knows every last secret and decides to stay.” The influence of her lyrical poetry is evident in everything from the numerous websites dedicated to listing her songs like spiritual volumes, to the inscription of her words on dorm room walls, to the inclusion of her verses as part of signature lines on emails. Her sophistication and irony speaks to a generation grappling with an intense awareness of social injustice, while her loud and audacious musical style makes folk music sensibility accessible to people raised on MTV and hip-hop aesthetics.

DiFranco is now preparing to release her 22nd album, in January 2005. This new album, Knuckle Down, will come out about a year after her 2004 solo album Educated Guess (and by solo, I mean she performed all the instruments and vocals), just months after the November release of her DVD Trust. Filmed at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., this DVD captures her energetic live performance for year-round viewing.

Although it is hard to ignore her success as an independent producer in a dog-eat-dog industry, DiFranco always specifies that the art comes first, and being true to her vision is the most important aspect of her career. As she has stated on numerous occasions, including in a much-distributed November 1997 open letter to Ms. Magazine, she is “just a folksinger, not an entrepreneur." Fortunately for us, she excels at both.

Ani DiFranco is touring the Northeast this winter, with some Midwest and West coast dates early next year. Get more information at righteousbabe.com