dickmix-2feb-mr

Dick and I have been on a journey to create Songs of the Sea. You can find the other songs of the sea here:
soundcloud.com/oorlab/sets/songs-of-the-sea

You can find the video here:
youtu.be/dRx4Qx4d3wg

I approached Dick about doing a song about the East India Company. We discussed it for a while before heading off on the journey to create this song. There is a lot of controversy around this company. All is not glory and good. In the end we decided it is like life, you have to take the good with the bad.

Here is a synopsis of what Wikipedia says about the East India Company:
The United East Indian Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie; VOC), referred to by the English as the Dutch East India Company, was established as a company in 1602. The Dutch government granted it a 21-year monopoly on Dutch spice trade. It is considered to be the first multinational corporation in the world. It was the first company to issue stock. It was a powerful company with quasi-governmental powers. It could wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, make its own coins, and establish colonies.

The East India Company is famous as the first public shareholder company actually started out as a bunch of adventurers, possibly pirates. The English, Dutch and Portuguese sailed to the east to find America but, while fighting amongst themselves, reached the South East Asian island empire of nowadays Indonesia. There they stumbled upon civilizations that were in many respects more advanced than Europe in the 1500's. But in one aspect the Europeans had maps and instruments to navigate around the globe. The Chinese also had some maps and knowledge of navigation - but they kept it a secret. The Europeans shared more of their knowledge amongst each other. This song describes the journeys of the soldier-merchants of the East India Companies. Coffee, tea, pepper - we owe a lot to these sailors.

To learn more about the East India Company:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company