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Since his days as a member of the Beatnigs while in his early twenties, Michael Franti grew from an angry young hip-hopper with a political, socially conscious bent (the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, Spearhead) to a man who channeled his seriousness, social unease, and desire for change and merged them with his love for music, particularly old-school R&B, soul, and hip-hop. What he left behind in brash, make-some-noise aesthetic, he gained in compassion. And through his use of his own raw power -- charisma, sex appeal, sense of social injustice -- he carried out in his music a community-generated passion in much the same way as Gil Scott-Heron or Marvin Gaye. Franti was adopted at birth by white parents in the predominantly black community of Oakland, CA. That set of contradictory circumstances instilled in him a hyper-awareness of his own cultural identity as did the sobering fact that his more thoughtful, less provocative style of expression was not accepted by the African-Ameri...