“I want you
To understand what it means
To lose your freedom…”
Ross Ulbricht is currently serving two life sentences in a maximum security jail, where he’s been since 2013, for creating the world’s first online digital marketplace based around Bitcoin.
This is his story. Told in his own words, via phone-call from prison, transmuted into music.
Understand what it means - to lose your freedom.
Stream and download the album nowon your platform of choice.
Join uslive for the visual premiere on Youtube here from 2ET
I met Ross’ mother, Lyn, late last year, when I was in Miami to perform myAyn Rand EP at the Atlas Society gala. The World renowned “Pimp On A Blimp” Alex Stein very sweetly invited me to a party being hosted by Tim Pool, where I had a lovely time and met a number of fascinating people, and late in the night I was introduced to Lyn. She ended up giving me a lift back to my hotel, and on the journey we spoke about her fight for her son, and music, and I told her I wanted to make a song.
The next day, Lyn’s friend Martha Bueno sent me Ross’ 2021 Miami Bitcoin Conference address, delivered by crackling telephone from maximum security prison, and I listened to it all the way through, wandering around Miami, and it made me weep, and I knew then that it would be the basis of the record, which would now be an album, rather than just the one song.
Making the record had challenges, to be sure. Getting the tone right was crucial. This is a man’s life story, after all. A man locked in jail, presumably for ever. The telephone recording is certainly the trickiest vocal audio I’ve ever had to work with. And then there was the small matter of how it kept making me cry, which gets in the way of recording vocals.
I completed the record as Bitcoin was surging to $108,000, and the bitcoin 100k Christmas Parties that Clif High was predicting all those years ago were happening. Ross, meanwhile, remained in prison. But there is hope. In an address to the Libertarian National Convention in May, Donald Trump declared, “if you vote for me, on Day One, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht.”
Well, they voted for him, and Day One is fast approaching.
Merry Christmas Ross.
Merry Christmas Lyn.
And Merry Christmas to you, beloved Meaningwave enjoyer.
LOVE TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!
AKIRA THE DON
DSPDC, Mexico, December ‘24