Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe Radio Launches With Atlanta Show Broadcast

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Ani DiFranco

Homebound folk music fans can cheer up because at 10 p.m. Wednesday Ani DiFranco launches Righteous Babe Radio with a 2013 concert from Variety Playhouse in Atlanta. 

DiFranco’s last Atlanta stop was in 2017, when she played Center Stage in support of her album Binary.

The New York native now calls the South her home; she lives in New Orleans. DiFranco is a Grammy Award winner and an American feminist icon.

She chronicled her early life and career in a memoir, No Walls and the Recurring Dream, which released last year. The songwriter-turned-author described her memoir as coming from a place of hard-won wisdom, combining personal expression, the power of music, feminism, political activism, storytelling, philanthropy and entrepreneurship. DiFranco founded Righteous Babe Records as a teenager.

Although she had originally been approached years before to host her own radio show, DiFranco passed on the opportunity with her firm belief of self-sufficiency intact. But, with social distancing forcing a moratorium on concerts, touring and the added isolation that comes with quarantine, the singer decided to share her dream of community across the internet airways.

MORE: Ani DiFranco On Reading The News, Taking Bike Rides And Making Space To Evolve

DiFranco said she loves National Public Radio, college and community radio. Her fantasy involves having at her fingertips the "music of my brilliant friends and collaborators … nerding out on revered influences … amplifying the sounds and words of my political and cultural inspirations."

When DiFranco lived in different cities at different times in her life, she said she kept company with different radio stations and those stations felt like integral parts of her experience of each city.

"Living [not super commercial] radio has been a companion to me my whole life," DiFranco said. "I shudder to think where our 'informed electorate' would be without NPR."

DiFranco's RBR Radio will emphasize live music, bootlegs, book excerpts, talks, interviews and other spoken word projects from DiFranco, Righteous Babe artists and others, according to a press release.

Previously unreleased live Ani DiFranco shows from the archives air at 10 p.m. Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays with a new show added every week. Before these live shows, RBR Radio will feature an hour of music from the many artists whom DiFranco has shared the stage with, including Anais Mitchell, Pieta Brown and Peter Mulvey.

Also, RBR Radio offers an interview series airing Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 1 p.m. and again at 6 p.m. (all times local to Georgia).

You may hear something from DiFranco’s book tour or some more recent conversations where she interviews other artists regarding life in this COVID-19 world. Podcasts echoing Righteous Babe’s independent vision and content will continue to be added as “we move forward together to make this station as righteous and informative as it can be,” DiFranco said.

You can stream it here now. And it streams live 24 hours a day.