MUSIC: Can't we all just get a bong? In conversation with Michael Franti

“For your security and safety,” says the plane’s steward, “we do a spiral descent from 15,000 ft above the airfield. We do this because it’s 100% effective against surface-to-air missiles, and extremely effective at avoiding small arms fire.” Welcome to Baghdad.
So begins ‘I Know I’m Not Alone’, Michael Franti’s award-winning musical travelogue of his visit to Iraq, Israel and Palestine. “I was tired of watching generals and politicians every night explaining the economic and political cost of war, the hardware and machinery of war, and never mentioning the human cost,” he says of his reasons for making the trip. “There were these hi-tech graphics of buildings that they were bombing and I was like ‘Where are the people?’” He was also inspired by William F. Pepper’s ‘An Act Of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King’, the book by the Vietnam war photographer whose work led King to say: “I have to speak out against the war. I can’t see these photos and remain passive.”
Still, honourable intentions aside, was there ever a moment in that plane when he was thinking ‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea’? “There was a point before that, actually, when we were waiting to get onboard. I have a song where the lyrics say ‘We can bomb the world to pieces but we can’t bomb the world to peace’. I had a 100 sheets with the lyrics translated into Arabic, but at the top of the page the song title was still in English: ‘Bomb The World’ followed by all these Arabic lyrics…” Black-humoured What Of It? dissolves into laughter. To no little relief, Franti follows suit. “We’re in the airport and I’m thinking ‘Oh fuck, man, I’m going to fucking Baghdad with these!’ We sat frantically trying to tear off the top of every page. So, yes, I had fear going into this war zone. Part of my fear was about Muslim extremists who’d maybe want to kidnap me, but also thinking maybe there were some Americans who wouldn’t want me sniffing around with my camera.”
The ensuing footage boasts a memorable cast. The Palestinian family who go into debt to feed him, unable to access food from their farm because of the recently erected wall that divides their land. The Black Scorpions, a metal band in a Baghdad basement who strip phone cable to string their instruments. Robi Damelin, an Israeli, and Nadwa Sarandah, a Palestinian, speak together about the Parents Circle Families Forum, a group comprising people from both sides of the conflict, united in bereavement. There are also Israeli soldiers patrolling their border, US soldiers stationed in Baghdad, citizens of that city who suffered under Saddam just as they’re suffering under occupation. And many others. A neutral editorial tone runs throughout. “When you go into a situation where there’s a military occupying a civilian population,” says Franti, “there’s an automatic imbalance of power that’s hard to not address. But I really believe that the way we’re going to get to lasting peace is when we recognise the suffering of all people. From the sideline it’s easy to kibitz about war, to say ‘well, gosh, if Hamas would just stop suicide bombing then there would be some moral high ground for the Palestinians’ or ‘if Israel would give some of the land back, then, y’know…’ But as soon as you start getting into those things and not addressing what all people feel on a physical, as well as moral and psychological, level, well… War doesn’t leave anybody out. The lesson that has to be understood is that violence begets more violence. What I hoped to do with this film was not necessarily try to change people’s minds, but try to open them.”
In many ways, the project marks a logical step for Franti. An innately political musician, he first came to prominence with the brilliant Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy and, specifically, overtly picking up the mantle of righteous funker from Gil Scott-Heron with the song ‘Television…’ (‘Television! The drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation’). His later – and current - outfit, Spearhead, are generally a rootsier proposition, though lacking none of the broad appeal, authority-questioning stance that saw his earlier band tour with both Public Enemy and Nirvana.
Faultlessly thoughtful and seemingly unquenchable of spirit he might be, but every politico needs the occasional confirmation that they’re getting through. For Franti it came with the incantation of a single word: Habibi, or ‘my beloved’. Every time you sang that, I tell him, in the streets or people’s homes, to young or old, all faces lit-up. How did that feel? “It was great, you know, it really restored my faith in the goddess of music. As conscious as I like to think I am, I’m still part of this ‘record industry’. I go to marketing meetings, I sit in on discussions on where we’re gonna tour and all these things, and it’s easy to forget that music was given to us to be something that we did together. And it wasn’t just my music, but witnessing how people in Iraqi cafes would be sharing music with one another.”
And Iraqi basements, too, where he met those cable strippers, Black Scorpions. “It was amazing to see that commitment. We were gonna go to their rehearsal, and they were like ‘Do you think you can give us a few dollars?’ I was thinking ‘these guys are trying to hustle us because we want an interview with them’. But that wasn’t it: there was no electricity and they needed money to buy gas for the generator. That’s what we don’t see when we give our tacit approval to go to war: the day-to-day lack of human security. How do people get to school? How do people find food? When they turn on the tap and give a glass of water to their kid, is it gonna be full of microbes that could be the death of their children? We don’t think about that. We think let’s go into Iraq, or into Haiti, or southern Lebanon, or wherever ongoing war against poor people exists.”
Unsurprisingly, Franti holds “many” abiding memories from the trip. “Some were really spiritual and deep things like sitting down with Robi and Nadwa, discussing the death of their family members and children and saying ‘We want their deaths to be a call for peace, not for more killing’. That really, really moved me. And then there were funny moments, like the morning I arrived in Baghdad and said ‘I want a traditional Baghdad breakfast’. You know, when I go to Paris I want a croissant. But their very special breakfast is goat’s head soup. And I’m vegetarian. That was a pretty big reach for me…”
Upon return home, Franti began work on both the film and the soundtrack album, ‘Yell Fire!’, that he comes to Bristol to promote. “I had my editing studio upstairs and recording studio downstairs, so I would watch footage and emotions would come up that I didn’t feel when I was there. Going through the process of editing and then writing a song was really a catharsis for me. When I was on the street there, people would say to me ‘We don’t wanna hear songs about war. We wanna hear songs that make us feel happy, make us feel up. Why not make us cry, or make us feel something tender? We wanna hear songs about connection to people’. So that’s when I decided to go to Jamaica: ‘Let me get my head out of this. Let’s hook up with Sly and Robbie and make the most joyous record that we can make’.”
Joyous indeed, but also musically ‘lighter’ than much of his previous work. Did he want the words to stand alone? “First of all, I didn’t want to make a ‘protest’ album: 14 songs saying ‘war sucks’. I didn’t feel it would be listenable. The other thing is, I want the music to reach beyond the choir.”
So, on the September 11 anniversary, Franti flew in Robi and Nadwa to address the annual Power to the Peaceful festival in San Francisco. He’s also been to Northern Ireland. “I visited people that talked about the troubles and the desire to seek some form of reconciliation. I feel that seeds of lasting peace in the world are held within the hearts of the people of Northern Island, of South Africa, of Israel and Palestine, Darfur – places where there’s been incredible conflict. I film wherever I go. Meet people, talk to people, play music in the street. It’s kind of an ongoing journey.”