Ani DiFranco

Ani DiFranco's viciously percussive abuse of her acoustic guitar and her no-holds-barred feminist lyrics won over legions of angry young women in the 90's, and she became one of the first high-profile artists to kick the existing major label infrastructure to the curb with the launch of Righteous Babe Records in 1990 – that's 17 years before Radiohead, kids. There once was a time when she was slated to mature into a folk icon, but even that will probably end up happening on her terms. That's OK, though – it would have had to be machine gun folk, and that barely exists elsewhere anyway.