Ash Joins The Outlaw Ocean Music Project, An Unusual Collaboration with Journalist Ian Urbina

Ash Album Cover for The Outlaw Ocean Music Project, a project by Ian Urbina

It’s a whole new concept: linking journalism and music together. I always try to compose something meaningful, but that is actually the first time that I work on something with an important message.”

— Ash for The Outlaw Ocean Music Project

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES, June 20, 2022 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In a thoughtful video, musician Ashraf Moawad explains why he joined forces with investigative reporter Ian Urbina to draw attention to human rights and environmental abuses at sea within

The Outlaw Ocean Music Project.

The Outlaw Ocean Music Project, run by the label Synesthesia Media, is a global and expansive effort to disseminate The Outlaw Ocean Project’s investigative journalism to a broader audience by releasing music inspired by offshore reporting.

Spanning genres from classical to hip-hop to electronic, hundreds of musicians from around the world have joined the effort. Many of the artists who participate in the project draw from an audio archive of field recordings captured by Urbina while reporting offshore.

Ash is a multi-instrumentalist and electronic musician from Cairo, Egypt and is currently based in Montréal. He is known for his solo electronic live performances playing with the guitar, keyboard, saxophone, drums, pads and electronic wind instruments. His repertoire can be traced back to his first original track “Lost,” released in 2012, which garnered attention for its intricate fusion of middle eastern and electronic music. In 2016, Ash released his hit “Mosaïque.” The song has amassed over 90 million streams to date and charted in the Top 50 of many countries. Following “Mosaïque's” success, Ash released many more hits such as, “Worlds Apart,” “Give A Little,” “Daydream” and “Dans La Peau,” reaching over 350 million streams on all digital platforms.

Ian and Ash share a common conviction: the power to spread stories through music.
“As a musician, when I read, hear, or experience stories, the best way to share them is through my music," Moawad said.

Reading the stories reported in the book also made Moawad realize that many people are unaware of the environmental crimes happening at sea.

"I knew I wanted to create music that would contribute to a realistic depiction of the ocean. Like the book, these clips were unfiltered and raw, and I wanted to maintain their authenticity when composing my tracks. I wanted to do justice to the story of The Outlaw Ocean," Moawad said.

The songs from Moawad’s EP, “Untold Stories,” drew upon emotional and dreamy tones, as well as some more aggressive and somber sounds, to capture exactly what he felt when reading The Outlaw Ocean.

Synesthesia Media announces new waves of releases monthly on its social media.

About The Outlaw Ocean Project:

The Outlaw Ocean Project is a non-profit journalism organization founded by Ian Urbina that produces investigative stories about environmental and human rights concerns at sea globally. The project seeks to not only produce polished, narrative investigative journalism but also to amplify that reportage by converting it into other mediums to reach new audiences all over the world.