MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Each week, a well-known guest draws a card from our Wild Card deck and answers a big question about their life. In the 1990s, Ani DiFranco created her own record label and rejected the mainstream music industry. Since then, she has never stopped growing as an artist. In the last year alone, she starred in the Broadway production of "Hadestown," she was featured in a documentary about her life and career, and she released her 23rd album. DiFranco talked about her life before fame with Wild Card host Rachel Martin.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
RACHEL MARTIN: Pick a card one through three - one, two or three.
ANI DIFRANCO: Two.
MARTIN: What's a place that shaped you as much as any person did?
DIFRANCO: Let's go with New York - came here when I was 18, was just in shock.
MARTIN: We should say where you came from - Buffalo.
DIFRANCO: Oh, I came from Buffalo. Yeah.
MARTIN: That's relevant.
DIFRANCO: Yeah. You know, the Buffalo I grew up in was economically struggling. It wasn't like I - you know, New York was my first rodeo, but wow - a lot of suffering around me, which made me cry every day, every day. And also, you know, I was sort of a smiley kid from borderline Midwest, you know, Buffalo. Hello. So, you know, it's like, wipe that smile off your face. This is hardcore. But then, yeah, the lightness that shines through the bars and the cracks and the little green things that grow up through the cement, you know, become even more profound in a city like New York - and the ways that people find to love each other and uplift each other. So I was experiencing all of that all the sudden.
MARTIN: And did you carry that with you? - 'cause what you're describing to me is a sense of optimism, really, of - despite things, of an ability to still see good.
DIFRANCO: Yeah. I mean, I feel like I was born with the optimism, and I needed to protect it. I was a 18-year-old girl alone. I didn't know anybody. I was working at night. I was - you know, so for instance, I showed up with hair down below my shoulders and within a few months of living in New York, I had shaved it, blue, shiny, bald, as in - go away.
MARTIN: Well, you know what the thing I love about...
DIFRANCO: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...Your memoir is that you wrote about that moment, and it was incongruous to who you were, though, because you were someone who craved intimacy so much. But so you're building this barrier by shaving your head, but all you want to do is, like, aggressively, make eye contact with people and share some intimacy.
DIFRANCO: (Laughter) Yes, yes.
MARTIN: But everyone's looking you like, no, you look super scary.
DIFRANCO: Oh, my gosh. Yeah, that was really radical to scare people as a 5-foot-2 female, you know? And when you have zero power, that can be useful. But yeah, yeah, totally, I'm a completely open, heart-on-sleeve, little creature. And I was learning a lot of survival skills and - but those little moments, you know, when somebody would meet my eye or say something, I would carry those for days and weeks, you know, like medicine.
KELLY: That was Ani DiFranco speaking with NPR's Rachel Martin. For more from that conversation, you can follow the Wild Card podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF SINY'S "ORANGE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
