Sovereignty

I was obsessed with getting my first bitcoin without a crypto exchange. I was solo, stuck in an attic in queens, sequestered during the pandemic. Online, the scams swarmed and all I wanted was a clean wallet I had total control over with the meager amount I could afford in it. I wasn't able to make it happen then.

Around that time I got hooked up with the ubercool @ezincrypto who was on a mission to onboard people all over the world, and use crypto to do it. He and @Kinchasa would hold these events like "Key to Crypto" and discord-based rap cyphers and airdrop people real crypto. I was hooked. Creativity and incentives? Yes!!! Sign me up.

Even cooler is I got to be a part of some of the first music-NFTs made on Ethereum with early, bespoke GAN graffiti art. Don't worry, this isn't a shill, and we're still too early in history for people to care about a small group of eclectic hip-hop lovers from around the world gathering in weekly virtual cyphers while the world shut down. I can't say enough about the value of freely flowing in rhyme on a livestreamed audio channel with a hundred people listening. The feeling is a lot like liberation.

money trouble - listen on rarible

What's not liberating? Crypto taxes! This year I did mine again (thank you coinledger!) and I was ashamed that I had to spend $300USD on software to tell me (and the government) how much money I'd lost swapping this for that. I am not a savvy trader. I do not see the trends. I invest with my heart, pouring money into projects I believe in, and I find myself reluctant to ape into projects I don't really care about (even if they're mooning!). Maybe it's my contrarian habits.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be financially independent! It's just that I haven't honed the keen instincts required to make money in the markets. I don't lament it. Every once in a while you're in the right place at the right time and boom, you've got an airdrop... just enough to keep you hooked (and high enough in the tax bracket).

I come from marginalized-enough beginnings to be skeptical of how my tax dollars are being spent? On policing? On graft? On nonexistent social services? On wars? On subsidizing harmful business? On promoting relentless consumerism? I've often felt that if you go far enough left and far enough right, the two almost (but not quite) overlap.

Obviously though, the left and the right differ on lots of things, and as a skeptic of ideological thinking, I've had to examine my own positionality on:

• The role of government
• Economic policy
• Social Issues

Wanna get in a fight? Talk about any of these things. With anyone. Oh yeah, even your best friend who goes to all the events with you... as soon as you offer a nuanced view on one of the hot-topics, you have ceased being valid.

Sovereignty then, is not just having my own crypto private keys, my own will to exist free of the burdens of systems I have no voice in, but also, the ability to cultivate space for dialogue. Simultaneously, I have to increase my capacity to feel, to hold complexity, and as my friend Gibran Rivera says, "come back to coherence."

This kind of sovereignty is inherently interconnected. It means my enemy isn't really my enemy, just an after-school-special transformation waiting to happen. And not their transformation, it's about a transformation of circumstances that often requires collective action.

Here's an example: I was at a wealthy crypto hedge fund owner's penthouse for a private party. I'd been asked to perform. Around the dinner table, I watched as he interrupted, downplayed, mocked, belittled, dismissed, dominated, and abused several of the guests after they were invited to share about their day's experiences (they'd all gone to visit Rikers' Island, the world's largest jail). The gathering was about justice, and in particular, the justice giving arm of the hedge fund guy's charity.

But what was on display by the hedge fund guy, as a host, was the good-ole-boy locker room power tactics. The good natured ribbing that if you object to, would be responded to with aggression or dismissiveness. It made me feel horrible to watch.

So I waited my turn as guests spoke (and got reamed) in a clockwise fashion. Finally I was next... and I got skipped! I hadn't gone on the trip, so I wasn't invited to speak. But believe me, I've been to the island before, and I would've had a lot to say. Hedge fund guy wrapped up the sharing by barking at me to play a song.

I love nothing more than making up a song on the spot (as evidenced by the low-stakes freestyle above). In fact, a key aspect to my sense of sovereignty is rejecting the pressure-filled high stakes projected on me externally. It doesn't mean I don't want to do well, it just means I actively recenter in the moment and remind myself that I really don't have anything to prove.

In that moment, though, I really did have something to say. I found a nice chord progression and filled the room with the energy of jangling metal strings. Several of the guests had gotten the worst of the host's treatment, and so I bathed them with my gaze and sang praise to them. I lifted the heart of their sharing, the thing that had been mocked, and I wove it into rhyme and lightness. There were laughs and involuntary body movements (the kind I've learned to look for as a performer). It was a cleansing feeling as I thanked everyone by thanking the few. I praised their vulnerability.

The host was quietly seething. A few minutes later the dinner turned into cocktails and I spoke to him in a hallway the size of most New Yorker's rooms. I said, "Can you tell me more about your approach as a host?"

He said, "what do you mean?"

I said, "what are you trying to achieve? It feels really uncomfortable watching you shut people down."

I realize I've neglected to mention that the hedge fund guy is 6 foot 4 and was an avid wrestler. That became relevant when he said to 5 foot 9 me, "I have a wrestling room downstairs, want to go test it out?"

Weirdly, part of my sovereignty is a tolerance for ass-whoopings. I mean, I've lost in some spectacular ways. It means I'm not quite as afraid of conflict as most (that doesn't mean I run headlong into it). This story is spinning out of control.

Sooooooooooo.... I said, sure, let's go.

(image description: 6 panels of pixel art, each with a limited palette and low resolution, are arrayed in three columns and two rows. Each image represents a collaborative piece based on a theme. Themes include dogs, cats, candyland, music, starwars. images are created on a decentralized app called BasePaint where everyone who contributes receives a portion of the proceeds of the mint.)