Making Music from Journalism

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Hundreds of Musicians, One Mission

Music Inspired by The Outlaw Ocean

A Book by Ian Urbina

The Concept

Musicians and journalists are both storytellers. One uses sounds, the other leverages words. The Outlaw Ocean Music Project is a first-of-its-kind collaboration of such creators. In combining their mediums, these narrators have conveyed emotion and a sense of place in an enthralling new way. The result is a captivating body of music based on The New York Times best-selling book by Ian Urbina called The Outlaw Ocean, which chronicles a lawless realm that few of us realized existed.

While reporting for more than 5 years at sea, Urbina built an audio library of field recordings. It featured a variety of textured and often rhythmic sounds like machine-gun fire off the coast of Somalia and chanting captive deckhands on the South China Sea. Using the sound archive and inspired by the reporting, hundreds of artists from more than 40 countries produced EPs in their own interpretive musical styles — including electronic, ambient, classical or hip hop.

The Result

Pirates and mercenaries, people smugglers and bounty hunters, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways—The Outlaw Ocean’s netherworld is rich not just in gritty characters but also in sound, drama and pathos. This makes it a perfect augur for great music, which is only the more mesmerizing due to the gravity of its stories and backed by the dark beauty of its still and video imagery.

As a creative experiment, the project represents a novel way to do journalism. Aimed at people who might not otherwise have encountered this reporting, the music renders stories more viscerally and delivers them to the public through different channels. The music project’s goal is to raise awareness and stoke a sense of urgency about the human rights, labor and environmental abuses that occur at sea. The passion and creativity of the resulting music also proves anew that artists work best when they are inspired.

Learn More about the Book