MICHAEL FRANTI

A sonic innovator with a sunny disposition—even in the hospital

Michael Franti has long been acclaimed by critics and a devoted cult of fans for his fusion of hip-hop with blues, reggae and soul. But last year Franti and his backing group, Spearhead, were surprised to find a mass audience with the breakout hit “Say Hey (I Love You),” a charming nugget of reggae-pop. “We’ve gone from traveling in vans and playing in the street to performing festivals around the world,” Franti says. “We never set out to have a big hit. It’s amazing.”

An extended tour to support their breakthrough smash allowed them to test out new material. “We saw the reaction from the crowd,” says Franti, who formed the group in 1994. “We’d often head to the portable studio after the show and make changes.” But even as his career soared, Franti struggled with health problems.

He was hospitalized with a near-fatal ruptured appendix last summer, just as “Say Hey” was climbing the charts. “I get this text saying the song’s in the top 20 and I told the doctor, ‘I’m not gonna live to hear it on the radio,’” he says. “We both had a big laugh about that.” Franti’s new album, Sound of Sunshine, is a bright, infectious suite of songs born out of his extended hospital stay. “Every day I’d have to get up and gingerly walk up to the window,” recalls Franti. He endured those hard times by pouring his energies into new music. “If the sun was shining, it was gonna be a great day and I’d bring out my guitar,” he says. “There’d be some days when it wouldn’t shine and I’d put the blankets back on and imagine myself in a sunny place. I wanted to make a record that would bottle that feeling.”

He brings the same optimistic outlook to his numerous humanitarian causes. Franti, who’s famously gone barefoot since 2000, is an active contributor to Soles for Souls, a charitable organization that donates old shoes to those in need. He also founded San Francisco’s Power to the Peaceful festival, an annual event that boasts 50,000 attendees yearly. This year’s festival will be held Sept. 11 and 12. “A lot of schools were being shut down and a lot of prisons were being built,” he explains. “We want education to be a priority, so the festival being around Sept. 11 just shows that this issue is an emergency.”

–Blake Boldt