Captain Youth is an American rapper, singer and freedom lover. OF COURSE he is a Bitcoiner too.
He has had the bravery snd good sense to not be afraid of making big decisions in life of which he is benefiting right now.
He decided to be his own man and set up his own business. To approach everything with intention, resulting in getting married young as well as securing the freedom and financial agility for his little family through his discovery of Bitcoin. Finally he made the decision to quit fiat mining to focus on more worthwhile things in life.
The life we live is a summation, an amalgamation if you like, of the decisions we make in life, or don’t, and Captain Youth is clearly making good decisions.
For years I felt like hiphop was dead. I largely turned my back on the genre. Peak fiat. Bling and bitches. Furcoat and no knickers, if that’s too colloquial an expression. No message of any value. The Bitcoin inspired hiphop I’ve discovered since we started working on 21ism.com has changed that for me. It seems like there is finally something to shout about. I have seen many regenerative sprouts and none have been greener or more promising than Captain Youth. This is just the beginning too. Who knows what he is going to grow into?
Have a listen to our rip, give him a follow here: @elcaptainyouth and for goodness sake bump this hit hard!
– Badders
INTERVIEW 1/2
I bought my first hiphop album in the early nineties. I had just become a teenager and having grown up in a ubiquitously middle class Scandinavian country I had little social context with which to judge the political urgency and anger of the lyrical content but I felt it.
It was exciting and both the production and the lyrics felt earth shatteringly important.
The album was Public Enemy’s ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back’.
It was quite the change from the Wham LP I had bought for pocket money just a few years earlier, to say the least (insert sweaty forehead emoji). From Careless Whisper to Don’t Believe The Hype.
Growing up my folks played music in the house all the time. Lots of the protest songs from the sixties were still being bumped on my parents stereo throughout the eighties and nineties. From Dylan’s work like ‘Only A Pawn In Their Game’ and Nina Simone’s ‘Mississippi Goddamn’ to Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect’ and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Fortunate Son’.
My parents had been coming of age around the time of the student rebellion in ’68 and as children of the post-war reality they had second hand experience of family members who died in both the resistance and concentration camps. My mum and I talked about this regularly and would often translate and discuss the lyrics of some of these tunes. When I started writing songs as a ten year old I tried to write about things I perceived to matter at the time. Pollution, poverty and war. Urgh… I meant well but I’m sure it was unbearably precocious!
So when I first heard that Public Enemy record and held the sleeve in my hands I was sold.
It sounded different to anything I had heard before but the political message was one I recognised from Nina Simone, Sam Cooke and others. What followed was a decade of conscious rap that centred around real and important issues.
Then all of a sudden, a genre that had provided so much of intellectual, cultural and political value, became ravaged by the fiat monster and left us with 20 years of vapid, vacuous nonsense (bar the rare exception).
"Violence, agression, drugs, short term time preference with women and money… If you take the conspiracy side of things it almost seems set out and planned to destroy the youth and encourage people to make bad decisions with their money and their time.
"
MUSIC COLLECTION
#01
#03
INTERVIEW 2/3
What was once counter culture became mainstream. A musical movement that once called out systemic ills and provided badly needed counter narratives got coopted by the very system it once opposed. It’s popularity became its demise. Money corrupts and broken money corrupts absolutely. In its own way the temptation to be close to the money was also what destroyed what it once stood for.
"Once you reach a certain level of financial success then it’s like ‘ok now what’? You can keep on going to work and make more money but what do you do with that money? That’s not a reason to live to just go to work to make money from something you don’t like or are indifferent to."
Before discovering Bitcoin Captain Youth owned a small painting company in Michigan that he set up. Being an anti-authority, freedom-loving guy he wanted to carve out his own way in life, be his own boss. Being self-employed provided the freedom to set his own schedule. Make his own decisions. Follow his own vision for the business and maximise the return on time invested.
When he discovered Bitcoin things started to build speed. He had always been at a loss of what to do with his sacrifice, his stored time, but here was a glaringly obvious solution that was antithetical and parallel to a legacy system that held so little appeal.
He had worked hard to build something of value for himself but when he reached a point where relative financial success had been achieved his mind started drifting towards what to do next. If he is anything like me I can only assume that Bitcoin sped up this process. Many of us have felt this lowering of time preference even if we already had a propensity for long term building.
Moving on from something that is successful and generates a nice living isn’t easy. It’s damn hard, actually! We’d all know a lot more people doing it if it wasn’t.
Maybe Captain Youth just did what he had done when setting up his painting business. Maybe it is as simple as just letting your principles and values lead the way.
When you’ve spent a life following your nose, your own ideas and vision to grow and maintain an independent business, listening to your gut becomes becomes less and less difficult and more and more of a matter of course.
Having already discovered his love of rapping years earlier he had enjoyed making and releasing music but the content reflected a lifestyle he no longer subscribed to, and maybe never really had. All of sudden there was a new source of inspiration. Bitcoin and all that it brings.
To quote Common ‘It doesn’t take a whole day to recognise sunshine’ but not enough people actually rip their top off and let the sunlight nourish them when they encounter it.
Captain Youth went in on Bitcoin when he encountered it. He got married at an age where most of his peers were probably still dabbling in casual relations. He jumped into life after work when he had the chance.
"With the price appreciation it’s given me a bunch more time, a bunch more freedom, it’s changed everything about my life for real."
MUSIC COLLECTION
#01
#03
INTERVIEW 3/3
The pendulum of fiat culture to sound culture might well be about to reverse its course.
By reverting to sound money we are going to be reverting to sound culture too. Gradually at first, then suddenly. Culture is downstream from monetary policy and those of us who have already changed our numeraire are already down river hopeful and expectant of all the many that will follow. Captain Youth is one of many many indicators that things are already starting to change/
Soon, artists like him will have the same effect on teenagers as Chuck D and crew had on me when I first held that glorious vinyl sleeve in my hands. They too will be woken up to what is going on beneath the surface. They too will feel inspired and excited by the information they will glean from devouring the music. They too will feel compelled to dig in further to the truth they encounter.
If art reflects life then life is changing. There is all of a sudden more to rap about than bling and bitches. More to celebrate than violence and drugs.
Bad money killed hiphop but good money will resurrect it.
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Check out my chat with Captain Youth (linked above) where we talked about:
His journey as an independent and free man, music, optimising for happiness and Bitcoin.
Show him your appreciation on Twitter here. peace!