'Beat the Blockade' album supporting WikiLeaks released

WikiLeaks was subjected to a financial blockade in December 2010 by the Bank of America, Visa, MasterCard, Western Union and PayPal. On June 28, a CD was released entitled "Beat the Blockade."

Julian Assange's WikiLeaks colleagues are supporting their founder's cause with music. Beat the Blockade is a special collection of songs, released in order to raise funds for the organization. Believing that the blockade by U.S. financial institutions was both political and illegal, the WikiLeaks album contains 12 songs about the hardships experienced by the project's main supporters, including U.S. soldier Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and the Anonymous hackitvist group. The WikiLeaks website says, “We are forced to put all our efforts into raising funds to ensure our economic survival. For almost a year we have been fighting an unlawful financial blockade. We cannot allow giant US financial companies to decide how the whole world votes with its pocket.” "The U.S. Department of Treasury has given donations to WikiLeaks a clean bill of health, but the blockade by Bank of America, VISA, MasterCard, PayPal and Western Union continues to prevent people from supporting the cause they believe in. WikiLeaks is currently fighting the blockade in lawsuits around the world. The blockade is entirely political and was erected without any legal or administrative process whatsoever." According to the website, the CD features "12 cool and inspiring songs about the struggles of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Anonymous." Among the songs in the collection are Wikileaks Anthem: We Want the Truth, WikiLeaks Samba, Song for Bradley Manning and The Ballad of Julian Assange. British rapper Dan Bull and American singer/song-writers David Rovics and Erick Nova feature along with several other musicians in the recording. The "Beat the Blockade" CD is available online with one version available at $11.99 and a supporter version at $24.99. All proceeds from the release of the CD will go to WikiLeaks and the Bradley Manning Defense Fund. The video above features Sharon Z singing "Shout it out and be heard" and below you can hear "Bradley's Song."