Last year, the prolific Ani DiFranco released three albums. Any record company marketing executive would tell you that's more than the market could take. But then, DiFranco doesn't have to answer to any record company. She owns her own.
She started her own Righteous Babe Records in 1990, which has subsequently become one of America's most successful independent labels with catalog sales approaching a million. DiFranco oversees every aspect of the business, including producing, cover design and selecting which musicians to play with. On the most recent album, her 15th, "To the Teeth," these included sax player Maceo Parker and The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, who probably shares a few opinions with DiFranco on artistic property.
Apart from her percussive guitar style, at various times DiFranco also plays bass, drums, keyboards and banjo. In addition to her trademark "folk punk," she flirts with rap, jazz, soul and funk, making an already notoriously hard artist to define even more so.