This talented young artist is one of the most productive songwriters today, having written and released a minimum of one album every year since 1990 (except for the year 2000). She was born on September 23, 1970, as Angela Marie Defranco to music loving parents. At the tender age of nine she was already playing Beatles tunes in bars. By the time she was 18, she had started Righteous Babe Records, and issued her own work on the label in 1990.

Her music is often described as staccato fingerpicking guitar style and sophisticated, poetic lyrics. She often speakers her lines rather than sings them, presenting them with carefull planned but varying rhythms. There is some disagreement on whether her music is alternative or folk, but it seems more a cross-genre or fusion of the two. Besides her own blend of styles, she has collaborated with musicians from many other genres: Prince, Maceo Parker (soul, jazz), Utah Pillips (folk), and Cory Parker (rap), to name a few. She also uses non-rock and non-folk instruments in new ways, such as the brass in Little Plastic Strings and synth and electronics in To the Teeth.

Difranco, however, includes other genres as folk that most people wouldn't think belonged there. She appears to consider folk music the music of the people, which includes rap, punk, and a few others. She calls it "subcorporate music" and considers it a tool of rebellion against authority. She has often been thought of as a human symbol of feminism, to the point where some fans felt she was betraying them when she married Andrew Gilchrist in 1998.

Difranco writes much of her music around the most difficult social problems, such as homophobia and racism. Her political bent is part of the reason she became popular so quickly with the college age audiences; in addition, because a lot of her popularity is by word of mouth it seems there is a camaraderie and solidarity among her fans that has helped propel her to almost cult-level stardom.