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<\/p>\nMichael Franti is well known for many things.* The Oakland-born musician is a guitarist, rapper, songwriter and poet. He’s also renowned for his activism and commitment to social change, world peace and environmental issues; his activism and musical pursuits have long been intertwined. The artist combined music and activism yet again when he came to Asheville in July 2019: Michael Franti & Spearhead’s July 18 concert at Salvage Station was a benefit for Western North Carolina environmental and conservation nonprofit MountainTrue.<\/p>\n
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MountainTrue is \u201cthe primary protector and defender of the French Broad River watershed,\u201d according to its website. Franti says that Salvage Station is the ideal location for the benefit concert\u00a0 because it’s situated \u201cright along a river that […] has a history of not such great environmental practices” yet is vitally important to the community.<\/p>\n
Franti is a frequent visitor to Asheville and a popular concert draw. \u201cIt\u2019s a bastion of progressive politics and creative people,\u201d he says, noting that he tries to visit one of the city’s hot yoga centers whenever he’s town. \u201cAsheville\u2019s a place that is really inspiring to people all around the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The concert was Franti’s second benefit for MountainTrue. He says that locally-focused initiatives can have an advantage over national or global projects. By way of example, he says, \u201cA lot of times when we look at the issue of human-caused climate change, we go on these big-picture things that are really hard to understand: billions of tons of carbon in the air and stuff like that. It\u2019s hard to get your head around it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Franti believes that grassroots, ground-level issues can resonate more deeply with people. \u201cWhen you see the river and there\u2019s foam or tires or a shopping cart in it, that makes [the issue] so much more concrete. So that\u2019s why we love supporting local organizations who are doing great stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
He admits that sometimes, his fans look to him for cues regarding which causes to support. \u201cBut I prefer that rather than me telling people who they should support, that people take on the idea that’s it’s good to be on the side of the planet, on the side of teachers and educators,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want people to base their decisions on their heart and their connection to people and the planet more than I want to tell people who to vote for or what organizations to support,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
For his part, because there’s so much work to be done on issues of peace, justice and environmental causes, Franti recognizes that choosing activist organizations to support can be a challenge. \u201cWe get approached by tons of groups,\u201d he says. The decision often comes down to a few factors. \u201cPart of it is our bandwidth,\u201d he says, \u201cand part of it is how organized the group is in getting an event together that will have impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
But ultimately, Franti chooses to lend his name and support to efforts backed by passion. \u201cAt the end of the day, it\u2019s just [about] finding people who are passionate about the same things that I am, and who are doing things that have local and immediate impact.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has definite ideas as to why music and musicians can be such a powerful force for good. \u201cMusic is the sound of feelings,\u201d he says. \u201cMusic is what feelings sound like. A politician can come onstage and read off statistics or whatever, but if [someone] tells you a story that makes you feel something about life that you connect with, they\u2019re going to be more effective in what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Franti says that music really does resonates with people. \u201cIt does that literally, on a cellular level,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen we hear or feel a bass line, it\u2019s passing through our body; it\u2019s vibrating everything that\u2019s around us. And if it makes you feel good, it\u2019s changing you in that moment.\u201d Paired with lyrics that deliver a message, the result can be life-changing.<\/p>\n
He isn’t dissuaded in his efforts by those who would suggest musicians should stay away from activism. \u201cI grew up in a family where every single one of us five kids was taught to be civic-minded,\u201d Franti says. \u201cIf there was something you saw that was wrong, you were supposed to speak up about it. And if there are things going right, the same thing: you should be singing those praises.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the health of the French Broad River watershed was his focus issue for the Asheville concert, Franti says that he wants to be on the right side of history no matter what the cause. Mentioning current news reports about immigrant children being held in detainment camps, he says, \u201cWhen my grandkids ask me, ‘What were you<\/i> doing?’ I want to be able to say, ‘This was something that I was against, and I was vocal about it.’\u201d<\/p>\n
UPDATE 2025<\/strong>: Okay, now he’s known for, shall we say, some other things<\/em>. Not good at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Michael Franti is well known for many things.* The Oakland-born musician is a guitarist, rapper, songwriter and poet. He’s also renowned for his activism and commitment to social change, world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,41,51],"tags":[3905],"class_list":["post-17110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hip-hop","category-interview","category-pop","tag-michael-franti","cat-36-id","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17110"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29923,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17110\/revisions\/29923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}