MICHAEL Franti seeks peace by any means necessary. He released 17 top selling albums and they didn’t listen. He flew to Baghdad and sang peace songs in the face of soldiers, and they didn’t listen. He put on 50,000-billing festivals and they still didn’t listen. And he’s still fighting for your attention.

He is a musician with an overt political message, who, instead of fighting the power like Public Enemy, preaches harmony through hip-hop. Franti visited Iraq in a triple role as a film-maker, musician and peace protester in 2004. “When I went to sing to them, I’d never been so scared in my life. Every soldier in the room was holding an M16 in one hand and a beer in the other – and I think they were wishing I was Jessica Simpson.

“I began by singing some nonconfrontational songs but then I thought, ‘Fuck it, I’ve come all this way, I’m not going to back down.’ I sang my song Bomb The World and the room went quiet. I thought they were all going to kill me. But afterwards, they came up to me and said, ‘It takes big balls to do that.’”

Franti’s mission has always been primarily a political one – and he is mighty articulate in expressing it. His lyrics to Bomb The World, “You can bomb the world to pieces / you can’t bomb it into peace”, are as compelling as a film he made set in Iraq, Israel and Palestine, I Know I’m Not Alone, which was highly praised by Anthony Minghella.

“When I was in Iraq, I met a local heavy metal band who would strip pieces of telephone wire to use as guitar strings. I jammed with them and left them with all the equipment that I had. They gave me this home-made distortion pedal. Security meant it didn’t leave the country! Out there in Baghdad, I played a lot of music on the street. I would walk on the street and busk on the corner. People would come up and would spend time listening to me. I would ask them to take me to their cafes, to their schools.”

Franti’s brand of eclectic beats first caught the public attention in a previous incarnation as the rap collective, The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. This provided a mouthpiece for Franti on politics and injustice, all set to an industrial hip-hop beat. Franti then formed Michael Franti & Spearhead, an eclectic dub rock collective, whose 2003 album Everyone Deserves Music featured production from reggae giants Sly & Robbie and rappers from Blackalicious.

On the DVD box set of his war film is a quote from Minghella, saying: “Watch this film then insist that Michael Franti becomes president of the United States.” Franti remembers Minghella fondly: “I was absolutely devastated when heard the news of Anthony Minghella’s death. He was someone who carried himself with such grace. He was very softly spoken and gentle. I took that as an example in life. However, I think I’m more court jester than president!”

Since before Public Enemy’s It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back dropped in 1988, black music has been about confrontation, a ‘black CNN’ angrily mourning its marginalisation. Franti sees differently: “To me, being a rebel used to be throwing a brick through a window of a McDonald’s. Now it’s about compromise. Being a rebel isn’t always about being against the system, sometimes it’s the rebel that finds a solution to war.

“The rebel represented by my new album All Rebel Rockers [by Michael Franti & Spearhead] is more like this. Sometimes, if you don’t concede, you don’t compromise, you’re never going to get there. However, you also need confrontation to deal with issues like environmental sustainability.”

Before speaking to Franti, I had anticipated a haughty agitator, sneering at my ignorance of G8 summit decisions. The man I encountered was different. I found it easy to forget that this softly spoken, humble man has commanded audiences of 50,000 for his Power To The Peaceful festivals in San Francisco; that his bare feet [he has walked everywhere in bare feet since 2000] have graced hallowed arenas from the world’s leading music stages to Australia’s Parliament House.

It is as easy to assume that Franti’s peace and love San Francisco roots would have made the quest for harmony a natural, easy progression. Far from it. Every step of the Franti movement is a struggle, from the organisation involved in his festivals to the danger of his war zone shoots – all eeked out from a superhuman endurance – in the hope that one day they’ll start to listen.

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