MUSIC: THE FIERCEST FOLKIE

THE BIG TIME BECKONS, BUT ANI DIFRANCO REMAINS LOYAL TO HER OWN RECORD LABEL AND HER OBSESSIONS

Artists and audiences are always talking about not selling out, about not buying in, about the eternal struggle to prevent very personal art from becoming just another upc-bearing product put out by yet another megaconglomerate. Everyone talks about it, but folk singer Ani DiFranco walks it. A native of Buffalo, New York, who now lives in New York City's East Village, she is only 25 years old but has already managed to found her own record company (the not altogether ironically titled Righteous Babe Records), to release eight solo records (with total sales of more than 300,000) and, over the course...

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