Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna is an American singer and musician who fronts the electropunk band Le Tigre and sings lead in Bikini Kill. Born in Portland, Oregon, she attended The Evergreen State College in the late 1980s, where she began doing spoken word performances; after a conversation with the writer Kathy Acker, she turned to music, forming a band called Amy Carter with Heidi Arbogast and Tammy Rae Carland. In 1990 she and Tobi Vail joined Billy Karren and Kathi Wilcox to start Bikini Kill, whose early EP was produced by Ian MacKaye of Fugazi. The group released Pussy Whipped (1994) and Reject All American (1996), and Hanna co-wrote songs with Joan Jett. She recorded a solo album as Julie Ruin, then started Le Tigre, whose records include Feminist Sweepstakes and This Island (2004). She later led the Julie Ruin and is the subject of the documentary The Punk Singer (2013).