Bluesfest's Michael Franti To Join 'Q&A' Panel Next Week

Bluesfest-bound musician, yoga enthusiast and all-round spiritually aware guru Michael Franti will be bringing some blissed-out sensibilities to the ABC's weekly Q&A program next week.

Franti and comedian Ruby Wax are set to join federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne, Opposition senate leader Penny Wong and Nobel Price-winner Brian Schmidt as Monday night's guests, for yet another bout of rousing political discussion and hashtag abuse.

The Soulshine mastermind and Spearhead frontman's appearance should be an especially interesting one, not just for his outward activism and evident social awareness, but also given his what-seems-like-a-lifetime-ago involvement in early-'90s industrial hip hop crew The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy, who, somewhat ironically, earned wider recognition for their 1991 ideological single Television, The Drug Of The Nation, which included lyrics like "TV is the reason why less than 10% of our nation reads books daily" and "TV is mechanised politics".

Franti won't be the first artistic type to grace the show's panel, with Aussie rapper Matt Colwell, aka 360, being responsible for one of the more high-profile controversies generated on the show following his appearance in October last year.

At the time, Colwell's comments that he identifies the Australian flag with racism were met with both broad criticism and support, unfortunately taking focus away from several other prescient points the rapper raised while in the presence of Tony Jones & Co, including a poignant reflection about Aussie hip hop's ongoing problem with homophobia.

Franti's episode of Q&A will air from 9.35pm (AEDT) on Monday, 30 March, and will be simulcast on iview and ABC NewsRadio.

For more information about Bluesfest, see our Festivals page.