About the Music
A powerful song can be a springboard for reflection and action. Our featured artists speak frankly and honestly about urban realities such as inequality and oppression. Some listeners may find the words shocking, but we promise the message is passionate and powerful.
Read about the artists, listen to the lyrics, then share your thoughts on our world urban café
discussion board.
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Lyrics to World Urban Café featured track "Subdivision"
Recommended Listening: Self-Evident (MP3)
Read the lyrics |
and i'm wondering what it will take for my city to rise first we admit our mistakes then we open our eyes the ghosts of old buildings are haunting parking lots in the city of good neighbors that history forgot
from "Subdivision"
Born in Buffalo, New York, Ani DiFranco is a songwriter, vocalist and guitarist. From the raw "folk punk" of her early albums through the jazz/funk grooves she created during her years touring with a five-piece band to the twists and turns of her current work as a solo artist, Ani's restless creativity continually leads her and her listeners into ever more exciting territory.
Bruce Cockburn recently observed in Performing Songwriter that Ani considers it part of her job description "to try and reflect real life in [her] songs. The life of the streets; the life of nations; the lives of people coping with power or its absence, looking for joy through the loneliness and pain and the complexities of relationship; the life of the spirit. All these are the stuff of human experience, and human experience is what we all share."
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] She does so with two basic instruments, both of which are also constants in her ever-evolving world: her trusty guitar and her unforgettable voice. Ani began by hitting the road on her own, touring every weekend across the United States and Canada, and released her first album in 1990. Rather than waiting for some A&R bigwig to sign her, Ani simply created her own record label, Righteous Babe Records, eventually turning down legions of potential deals when she realized they had nothing to offer that she couldn't provide herself.
That do-it-yourself label of hers, still based in Buffalo (with a European branch based in London), has now released 16 of Ani's own CDs and about a dozen more by an eclectic hand-picked roster of artists whose music is as unclassifiable and unpredictable as hers.
Through her Righteous Babe Foundation, she's been able to support grassroots cultural and political organizations around the country, and she has repeatedly lent her time and her voice to such diverse pursuits as opposing the death penalty, upholding women's reproductive rights, promoting queer (gay/lesbian) visibility, and preserving historic buildings back in Buffalo. |
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"Where I'm from there are no police or fire fighters, we start riots by burning car tires."
from "What's Hardcore".
At age 9, K'naan was doing what most American kids were doing. He was hanging out on his neighborhood street corner, MC'ing for his friends, dropping Nas and Rakim verses, dreaming of a day when he would posses the lyrical skills and the rhythmic flow of his Hip Hop hero's. K'naan, however was very different from those American kids. In fact, he wasn't even an American kid at all, he was an African; and he wasn't on the streets of New York or Los Angeles or Detroit, he was on the other side of the world on the dusty streets of Mogadishu Somali. And although he was rappin' verses from Nas and Rakim and all the other great American MC's with an almost eerie attention to detail and pronunciation, he could not speak English.
With his unique voice but still truly authentic style, K'naan brings an enormous dose of realness and urgency to the hip-hop world in a time when people are desperate for it. From a personal and cultural history rooted in poetry (being the grandson of one of Somalia's most famous poets), K'naan widens the traditional hip hop perspective, from ghetto's to slums, from drug dealers to war lords, from 9mm and eagle 440's to AK's and rocket propelled grenades.
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Leaving Somalia at the age of thirteen on what turned out to be the very last commercial flight to ever do so, amidst a crumbling society and the end to this day of any form of central government, K'naan carried with him a very strong sense of purpose. It is this sense of purpose as well as his amazing lyrical gift, which has made him a beacon for other artists as well as those dedicated to global change. |
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The concept band, the Volume, is a creative joint venture between Tumi, Tiago, Paulo, Dave & Kyla. For more on Tumi and the Volume click here |
Tumi Molekane is one of South Africa's brightest up and coming wordsmiths. He is an honest poet, an intuitive writer and responsible MC.
Molekane has done countless work on the Johannesburg hip-hop scene, most notably the Dead Prez show in the spring of 2000, and the Black August tour to South Africa the following year, which featured Talib Kweli and Black Thought of The Roots. He has shared the stage with South Africa's premier talent, such as Blk Sonshine, Bra Willie Kgositsile, Max Normal, Lesego Rampolokeng, and international talent such as Saul Williams, Sarah Jones and Mutaburuka.
Tumi was the feature of Yfm's acclaimed pilot ad campaign, performing controversial poetry for the ads. Having worked on his project, 'The Tao of Tumi' in 2001 as a showcase, he is pioneering a whole new approach to making and presenting music. Around the same time, he compiled a collection of poems entitled The Black Inside Out. |
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