On Saturday 24 October in London, I’ll attend the world premiere screening of Rhapsody on the Outlaw Ocean. It’s a bit of an unusual piece: an hourlong fully animated rap musical documentary about the ocean. Its songs, based on prizewinning journalism, tell the stories of people trying to survive the lawlessness of international waters.

One character, a stowaway on a ship, is discovered and left to die on a life raft in the open ocean. In another song, a vigilante group chases the world’s most wanted illegal fishing ship over ten thousand miles. In another, a reproductive rights activist uses the loophole of international waters to provide abortions in countries where they’re illegal. Between the songs, the film follows a journalist character who struggles to convey the urgency of everything he’s witnessing.

I wrote the music and lyrics in close collaboration with real-life journalist Ian Urbina. His ocean reporting, first with The New York Times and then with his own nonprofit The Outlaw Ocean Project, provided all the raw material for the songs. When Ian and I first connected in early 2017, I knew a bit about ecological challenges facing the ocean but little about the challenges facing the people who make their living there. Ian’s journalism was my first introduction to how the ocean was, in his words, so “ungoverned and ungovernable.”

I was surprised to learn about it all. I would also have been surprised to learn that our collaboration would eventually take ten years, unite work from seventeen artists on different continents, and feature performances by five vets of Broadway’s Hamilton.

Ian’s idea in 2017 was that – as Mexican corrido music tells about US border crossing and the migrant experience – music might convey some of the facts and pathos around the seafarer experience. He shared with me a Spotify playlist of possible inspiration, including everything from dubstep, to minimalist classical music, to rap in French, Spanish and English.