Michael Franti and Spearhead

MICHAEL FRANTI AND SPEARHEAD
"EVERYONE DESERVES MUSIC"
(Boo Boo Wax, 2003)


"Everyone Deserves Music"


I'm not really a fan of Michael Franti and Spearhead, just because it's generally not my kind of music -- I've never been a big fan of socio-political "message" songs, for which Franti has earned a reputation -- but this particular CD has a poignantly ironic significance to me. You see, on the day that a local CD store, which I had patronized faithfully for years (and browsed in on an almost daily basis) went out of business, this CD -- specifically its title track -- was playing as I morosely walked out the beloved establishment's doors for the very last time. So, maybe you can understand when something inside me told me that I simply had to buy it.

The group's music is hard to categorize, at least as far as this album goes ... and that's the kind of album I like. Whether you're a fan of rap ("We Don't Stop"), R&B-glazed hip-hop ("What I Be"), 21st-Century reggae ("Pray For Grace"), soul from the '60s ("Yes I Will") or the '70s ("Love Invincible"), moving balladry ("Love, Why Did You Go Away?"), or even pseudo-bossa-nova ("Crazy, Crazy, Crazy"), it's all here. And let's not forget the cornerstone of the album, the moving anti-war song "Bomb The World", written in the aftermath of 9/11.

One thing I've learned over the years is that you can't go out and expect to find your next favorite artist; if you're meant to hear a song or an album or an artist and fall in love with it, it'll find you. That must be why "Everyone Deserves Music" was playing at that particular moment, in that particular place, on that particular day -- serendipity. I'm not exactly saying that Michael Franti and Spearhead are a "favorite" of mine or that I've "fallen in love" with them, but it's hard not to like an album like this.