Having already ticked “NSA whistleblower,” “international fugitive,” and “asylum seeker” off on his resume, Edward Snowden has decided it’s time to express his artistic side. The former government contractor—who set off a global political firestorm in 2013 when he leaked NSA documents to the American press—has teamed up with electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre to provide spoken word accompaniment for Jarre’s latest track. For his own part, Jarre—who’s worked with artists from Peaches to The Pet Shop Boys—tweeted his support for Snowden today.
Proving that Snowden is something of a single-issue leaker, the spoken word portions of “Exit” are mostly concerned with digital privacy the importance of rights: “Saying that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different to saying you don’t care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say. It’s a deeply anti-social principle, because rights are not just individual, they’re collective.” (That should make for a catchy hook when Jarre’s latest banger hits the clubs.) You can hear the song on Spotify, or purchase it online. A vinyl pressing is also expected next month.
[via Engadget]
