Stephan Smith- About

The Village Voice recently called Stephan Smith the "heir apparent to Woody Guthrie."
An Eagle Scout turned traveling troubadour, Smith is at once a multi-talented singer and a dedicated political activist.

Called "an incredible songwriter and musician" by Dave Matthews, Smith is a renowned musician who performs rock, country, and rap songs seeped in the old time folk tradition. His topical songs and poetry have become local and national anthems to the activist community. Among his recordings are the 1997 single "Ballad of Abner Louima," with background vocals by Patti Smith, and his 1999 debut album, Now's The Time (Rounder/Universal).

The full-length CD New World Worder was released in June, 2003 on Smith's own Universal Hobo label (distributed by Synchronic/Caroline). Slash and Burn, his first album with a band, was released in June 2004 through a new relationship between Universal Hobo and Artemis Records.

Smith has performed or recorded with Ween, Allen Ginsberg, Rufus Wainwright, Pete Seeger, Victoria Williams, Steve Earle, John Zorn, Mary Harris, Mark Ribot, and the iconoclastic legend Michael Hurley.

My name is Stephan Smith. I came here to drop a Balm. I write preemptive strike songs.

My mother's name is Smith. She's Austrian and Catholic but with a Jewish great grandfather so we had family on both sides of the barbed wire in the war. My father's name is Said, he's Iraqi, his mother had family on both sides of the Kurdish line. I was raised by a Jesuit named Frank Gutowski....

I ain't got no borders, I'm part of the post-border and post-boredom generation.

"TROUBADOUR OF THE 'NOT IN OUR NAME' MOVEMENT"
- Natasha Saulnier, L'Humanite, France (12/16/02)
An interview about "The Bell" and the global justice movement.

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"GIVING PEACE A CHANCE AGAIN"
- Neil Strauss, The New York Times (9/12/02)
A story about "The Bell" when it was released as a free MP3 on the Internet.

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"Ask which musicians made the greatest political statements of the past 50 years and names such as John Lennon, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan will likely come to mind. Yet to that esteemed list we add Stephan [Said]."

- Athens Magazine

"So strong is the buzz on Mr. [Said] that…he was asked by the grandfather of American folk music, Pete Seeger, to update perhaps the nation's most famous protest anthem, 'We Shall Overcome.'"

- The New York Times

"The clearest voice of the protest movement rising up out of Seattle."

- Jam TV/ Rolling Stone Network

"This generation's Woody Guthrie."

- Billboard Magazine

"He has been compared to Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen. It's easy to see why.""

- Ed Condran, Gannett News Service

"Stephan Smith, with his reedy voice, acoustic guitar and earnest topical songs such as 'The Ballad of Abner Louima' (with Patti Smith), recalls Bob Dylan in his early days."

- Jon Pareles, The New York Times

"Stephan Smith is a poet with politics who sings folk-rap that rocks, like Chuck D channeling Woody Guthrie, guaranteed to educate, agitate and motivate."

- Jim Hightower

"Stephan Smith is an incredible songwriter and musician. Keep your ears open. You will see him in the future."

- Dave Matthews

"Opening your album with a title track decrying the consolidation of power in the music industry, naming names in the process, is a moderately impressive act, but making the song sound like Phil Ochs as backed by the Roots is a conceit of enjoyably perverse genius"

- All Music Review