The star of this week’s mixtape is Falle Nioke, a man from Guinea now living in the UK. I stumbled across “Leywole” which stopped me in my tracks. What a sound! What a presence. What a beat.

There’s something going on that I can feel. Something hopeful and energizing. The success and future of bitcoin (and cryptocurrency in general) - a transparent and decentralized currency that can essentially be owned by anyone for any amount which no government can control, usurp, or overtake - is setting the stage for the emergence of sort of a global community no longer defined by borders and lines on maps.

Yes, there will still be wars and extremist religions and corruption and greed, but these things will be harder to finance (like US taxpayers paying $2T for a war in Afghanistan that cost 170,000 lives, 47,00 of which were Afghan civilians) because the world population will have control of the money, and that is where power lies.

There will still be borders separating countries, but those physical representations will fade as technological advances and “cloud communities” (as Balaji calls them) will become the norm. This is a decade or decades away, but it is happening.

Why the hell am I saying this? Falle Nioke may be singing in a different language, but I feel like I understand him. I feel connected to him in a way I haven’t felt before with a person singing in a different language. And I think it represents a connection I hope occurs globally with all sorts of people with different life experiences, upbringing, cultures, norms, and so much more humanity could benefit from understanding more.

A lot to come to mind by just one song, I suppose.

Happy listening.