Word: raffies
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...full name is Raffi Cavoukian, but during his 14 years as a troubadour to the nursery-rhyme set he achieved the type of international renown that allows people to become known only by their first name. With his throaty voice, chocolate-sweet eyes and zippy rhythms, he provided intelligent amusement to millions of boys and girls who might otherwise be transported to the Saturday- morning cartoon swampland of death rays and superheroes. In the process, he was amply rewarded: his 10 albums sold 6 million copies, and he was awarded Canada's highest civilian decoration...
...doing so much good for so many, did he turn his back on the generation of tomorrow? For something he considers even more important. His latest album, Evergreen Everblue, is not merely inappropriate for toddlers; it is a warning screech of apocalypse. Its cover portrays a haunted Raffi with death's-head stare, his beard spiked with acid-laden pine trees. Instead of warmly promising, as one of his favorite children's songs did, that Everything Grows, the new Raffi howls piercingly, "Why are we poisoning our children? What's the matter with...
...Raffi now refuses to play for children. He calls himself an eco-troubadour. Sitting on the terrace of his modest Vancouver apartment, he sighs over the resentment his act of conscience has created. "I know some parents feel I've abandoned their children. But I've come to realize that unless I do my utmost to stop the destruction of the earth, there'll be no world for those young people to grow...
...Raffi is not the first star to become politicized. But there is something frantic and indiscriminate about his activism. Along with environmentalism, Raffi is lending his name across the countercultural spectrum: he supports aggressive feminism, Native American land claims and animal rights. He believes oil companies should shut down their refineries not soon, but tomorrow, and devote their profits to developing solar energy. No executive of any company should earn more than $1 million a year. "Would that be enough...
Resisting contemporary wisdom is nothing new; Raffi has always been an outsider. Born in Cairo to Armenian parents, he moved with his family to Toronto when he was 10, facing the challenge of a new world and an unfamiliar language. He dropped out of the University of Toronto because what he wanted to learn was not offered there. "I'm interested in how life is, how the universe is, and how I'm a part of it," he says...