The Outlaw Ocean Music Project

This Series is a project by music artist worldwide, which are inspired by "The Outlaw Ocean" a book by Ian Urbina. A portion of the music’s revenue goes toward funding more of this ground-breaking reporting. 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.