Michael Franti: Music and Messages

"We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace"
- Michael Franti / Bomb The World

Thank goodness for people like Michael Franti. This world-renowned musician and human rights worker delivered two outstanding works of artistic expression and political awareness in recent years.

In 2005 Michael traveled to Iraq, Palestine and Israel to explore the human cost of war with a group of friends, some video cameras and his guitar. This resulted in the powerful film I Know I'm Not Alone.

A compelling soundtrack, visual and musical montages, and Franti's intimate voiceovers make the film speak to the MTV, X, Y & Z generations, as well as the baby-boomers. A true armchair travel film pulling the audience into these war zones in the company of Michael's guitar, eloquence and wit - you feel the humanity, artistic resilience and sometimes horrific experience of what it's like to live under the bombs and military occupation.

With its guerrilla style footage captured in active war zones, the documentary is unlike the many academic and politically driven pieces in the marketplace, instead offering the audience a sense of intimate travel and the opportunity to hear the voices of everyday people living, creating and surviving under the harsh conditions of war and occupation.

In 2006 Michael and his band Spearhead released one of the best albums of the decade. The collection of songs from the album Yell Fire! has been praised by fans, critics, activists and others. The tracks are not only fun and danceable, they contain some very important messages for a public burdened with a ruinous war.

Michael Franti and Spearhead just put the finishing touches on their new album, All Rebel Rockers, which was recorded in San Francisco and L.A., but mostly in Kingston, Jamaica. They say it's their tuffest recording yet and travels deeper into the reggae/rock/dancehall groove than they've gone before.

I Know I'm Not Alone

"Watch this film then insist that Michael Franti becomes President of the United States!"
- Anthony Minghella (Academy Award Winning Director, English Patient, Cold Mountain)

"Michael Franti is the most important artist recording and touring today who has yet to reach the mass audience. The subjects he sings about are totally genuine and derived from personal experiences."
- Chris Blackwell (Founder-Palm Pictures, Island Life)

"Michael's (Franti) a modern minstrel weaving stories of war and occupation into his heart of peace, giving us hope, not just tears. The film is powerful, honest, and touching."
- Serj Tankian (Musician-System Of A Down)

"Michael Franti so easily embodies the kind of artist we must all yearn to be, forever connected to the heart of the people and always giving us something meaningful to dance to, even and especially, in the face of war and despair."
- Saul Williams (Musician, Actor, Poet)

"I Know I'm Not Alone" is an antidote to despair. With soulful music and boyish charm, Michael Franti sings his way through two brutal occupations--Iraq and Palestine, breaking through the hate and revealing the oneness of our human family.
- Medea Benjamin (Founder-Global Exchange)

Yell Fire!

"Michael Franti is in] the pantheon of political pop."
- Boston Globe

"the album blends Franti's hip-political-hop with Spearhead's body-moving funkadelica"
- Paste Magazine

Michael Franti and Spearhead Website
Michael Franti @ Wikipedia
I Know I'm Not Alone DVD @ Artist's Website
I Know I'm Not Alone DVD @ Ruinous Right Store
Yell Fire! Album @ Artist's Website
Yell Fire! Album @ Ruinous Right Store
Yell Fire! MP3 Album Download @ Ruinous Right Store

Michael Franti and Spearhead - Streaming Concert Video