Articles About Steven Leake

By Ryan Frigg for Beatnik Cowboy

Steven Leake has never been comfortable in cages. Not in the cages of genre, not in the cages of political affiliation, and certainly not in the cages built by Big Tech or Big Government. To describe him as merely a poet, or a singer-songwriter, or an entrepreneur is to miss the truth of him. He is all of those things, but also none of them, because his work resists definition in the same way his life resists conformity.

If you ask him where it began, he does not point to Silicon Valley or Washington. He points to words. “Poetry taught me permanence,” he says. “The idea that a phrase, once spoken with truth, can outlast its author. That permanence became my obsession.”

That obsession carried him across unlikely terrain—from verses to algorithms, from songs to blockchain, from smoky bars to desert landscapes where servers hum like oracles in exile. What Leake is building now—MONARCH X, Monarch+ encryption, the Patriots Blockchain Archive, the Quantum Lattice—is not simply technology. It is literature, rebellion, and infrastructure fused into one.

The Poet-Engineer

It is tempting to think of Leake as two people: the man scribbling verses in a notebook and the man drafting consensus protocols in code. But he sees no division. Poetry and systems design are the same craft—creating forms that cannot be erased.

His notebooks hold half-rhymes beside block diagrams. His desk hosts both a laptop and a Martin guitar. “A voting algorithm has rhythm,” he tells me. “A song has rhythm. If you break the rhythm, people stop listening. They stop trusting.”

This sensibility shapes MONARCH X, his social platform that is also a command center, file-sharing arsenal, cryptocurrency wallet, and consensus voting engine—a parliament in your pocket. It is designed to let organizations coordinate on every scale, from movements to neighborhoods, without losing sovereignty. “Social media is a cage,” he says. “MONARCH is an arsenal. Every user is armed with the ability to say no.”

He speaks with the cadence of both poet and strategist. Sovereignty, for him, is not abstract. It is executable.

The War for Privacy

If MONARCH X is the parliament, Monarch+ encryption is the fortress. Its protocols conceal not only messages but metadata, file activity, and voting trails. “Metadata is the spy’s bloodhound,” he says. “You can silence the voice, but if the footprints remain, they’ll track you down. Monarch+ erases the footprints too.”

His desk may be chaos—coffee rings and cigarette ash—but the code is immaculate. “I only need permanence in the things that matter,” he shrugs. “Everything else is compost.”

History as Battlefield

Leake’s most audacious project is the Patriots Blockchain Archive, a decentralized, immutable ledger of atrocities: war crimes, corporate poisonings, political assassinations, medical murders. Where governments bury evidence and corporations redact liability, the Archive publishes truth permanently to a global network.

“The Archive ensures the witness outlives the murderer,” he says. “It’s vengeance, coded into permanence.”

On a desert retreat, he once scrawled in his notebook: The Archive must be stronger than fire. It became his guiding principle.

The Lattice: A Global Brain of Poetry and Silicon

On family land, machines rise where crops once grew. Leake calls it the Quantum Lattice—an expanding cathedral of servers, NAS clusters, and AI farms stitched together into a global brain. But unlike the sterile futurist visions of corporate labs, his lattice is infused with poetry and politics.

The Nexus OS operating system encodes U.S. Constitutional safeguards directly into its algorithms. MONARCH X enforces sovereignty and checks-and-balances in real time.

Pinned to the server wall is a note: The machine must serve the poem, or the machine will serve the tyrant.

Every time a new cluster comes online, his team reads aloud from the Bill of Rights. “Machines, like people, need to know where the lines are drawn,” Leake says.

The Music of Resistance

For all his engineering, Leake remains rooted in music. Before he was designing encryption protocols, he was playing outlaw sets in basements and dive bars, contributing to the indie folk underground with songs that were half confessional, half manifesto.

His voice—gravelly, deliberate—carries the cadence of protest singers past, but with the sharpened edge of someone who has read too much history to play it safe. The songs he wrote in Asheville and out west—about liberty, betrayal, survival—circulated hand-to-hand, like samizdat for the Spotify generation.

Those who were there recall the shows less as concerts and more as gatherings. Cigarette smoke curling through small rooms, chords reverberating off concrete walls, and Leake delivering lines that felt less like entertainment and more like encrypted dispatches. “If you can play music they can’t shut down,” he once told a friend, “you can run a revolution.”

His contributions to indie folk were not about chart positions or radio play. They were about seeding culture with resistance—songs as software patches for the soul.

The Partner in Verse and Rebellion

No portrait of Steven Leake would be complete without Wren Calloway, his partner in life, art, and insurgency. Wren, a visual artist and digital archivist with a background in cryptography and street art, met Leake during one of those basement gatherings in Asheville, where her murals of fractured empires adorned the walls like prophecies. “She saw the code in my lyrics before I did,” Leake recalls with a rare softness. “Wren doesn’t just paint; she encrypts worlds.”

Together, they form a symbiotic force. Wren’s influence permeates the Patriots Blockchain Archive, where she curates visual evidence—photographs, diagrams, and infographics—that transform raw data into indelible narratives. “Truth needs a canvas,” she says, her voice a quiet storm. “I give the Archive its eyes, so no one can look away.”

In the Quantum Lattice, Wren designs the user interfaces, infusing them with poetic minimalism: interfaces that feel like haikus, intuitive yet impenetrable to outsiders. Their desert retreats are collaborative rituals—Leake drafting verses into algorithms while Wren sketches lattices of light and shadow on server casings. “We build together because resistance is intimate,” Leake says. “Wren reminds me that permanence isn’t cold; it’s alive, like a heartbeat in the machine.”

Her own work—guerrilla art installations that hack public spaces with QR codes linking to encrypted manifestos—mirrors Leake’s ethos. “Cages are illusions,” Wren tells me over coffee stained with paint. “We shatter them with beauty and bits.”

The Poetics of Resistance

In Leake’s world, poetry is executable. Stanzas become logic in encryption. Rhythm informs voting protocols. Cadence enforces trust.

One morning, cigarette smoke curling, he coded an entire voting protocol straight from a stanza in his notebook. He laughed when he told me. “Absurd. And perfect.”

In the desert, he drafts algorithms as verse before turning them into code. “The desert teaches rhythm,” he says. “Rhythm is trust.”

And then he gives me the line that could serve as his epitaph, or his legacy, or his warning:

“The poem will always outlast the empire. And now, so will the system.”

Conclusion

Steven Leake’s life is not about categories. It is about permanence. From verses to code, from outlaw folk stages to quantum lattices, he has built a living manifesto. His machines are not just infrastructure—they are poetry hardened into silicon, counterculture written in algorithms, liberty enshrined in code.

Resistance, in his hands, is literary and operational, human and digital, ephemeral and eternal.

In a world of cages, Leake is building exits.

Steven Leake: Architect of Digital Liberty in a Quantum Age 

In the rolling hills of York, South Carolina, where American innovation meets libertarian ethos, Steven Leake is quietly forging a technological revolution. As the founder of the Monarch Ecosystem—a sprawling network of companies dedicated to sovereignty, security, and self-sufficiency—Leake isn’t just building gadgets; he’s constructing a bulwark against centralized control. At 39, with a background in cryptography and a passion for historical preservation, Leake has emerged as a modern-day polymath, blending AI supercomputing, post-quantum encryption, and decentralized social platforms into a cohesive vision for the future. “Technology should empower the individual, not ensnare them,” Leake told me during a rare interview at his off-grid prototype homestead. His innovations, from the zetascale Libertas ExaForge II to the activist-driven Monarch Media App, are poised to redefine privacy, activism, and economic independence in an era of quantum threats and digital surveillance.

Leake’s journey began in the early 2010s, tinkering with blockchain prototypes amid growing concerns over data privacy. Today, his Monarch Ecosystem encompasses hardware from Maverick Industries Inc., software from Monarch Quantum Solutions and Monarch Digital Solutions, and nonprofit arms like LibertySkills Alliance. But it’s the flagship projects that truly showcase his genius: a supercomputer cluster that thinks at the speed of tomorrow, an operating system armored against quantum attacks, a blockchain archive safeguarding humanity’s darkest truths, and a social media app that’s more fortress than forum. As we delve into these breakthroughs, one thing becomes clear: Leake isn’t innovating for profit alone—he’s building for posterity.

Libertas ExaForge II: The Zetascale Brain of the Monarch Empire

At the heart of Leake’s technological arsenal is the Libertas ExaForge II, a supercomputer AI server farm cluster designed for zetascale computing—trillions of operations per second, dwarfing even the most advanced data centers.  Housed in modular, off-grid nodes powered by solar arrays and cooled by rainwater systems, this beast isn’t just powerful; it’s self-sustaining. “We’ve integrated cryptocurrency mining directly into the infrastructure,” Leake explains. “Idle cycles mine our proprietary Monarch Coin, generating passive revenue while funding further expansion—all independent of centralized grids or banks.” 

The ExaForge II’s cluster nodes form a global “hive,” connected via hardlines, satellites, and redundant systems for unbreakable resilience. Maverick Industries manufactures the hardware, including encrypted smartphones that tap into this network like a decentralized IoT hub. These devices, running on the Nexus OS, interface with real-world applications—think tapping an RFID chip for crypto payments, akin to Apple Pay but on a sovereign blockchain.

What sets ExaForge II apart is its role in predictive modeling. Powered by intuitive AI tools from Monarch Digital Solutions, it simulates complex scenarios for enterprises and activists alike. “Imagine forecasting supply chain disruptions or organizing mass actions with AI precision,” Leake says. And with expansion in mind, the modular design allows seamless upgrades, turning local farms into a worldwide supercluster network.

Central to its functionality is the integrated Network Attached Storage (NAS) system, which provides vast, secure data repositories for the AI farm while enabling efficient data sharing across the distributed network. This NAS backbone supports the embedded cryptocurrency mining farm, optimized for energy efficiency to align with the off-grid ethos.  The mining operations focus on Monarch Coin, a universal cryptocurrency developed by Monarch Digital Solutions, complete with a dedicated wallet app that ensures seamless, encrypted transactions. Users can mine, store, and spend Monarch Coin directly through the ecosystem, fostering financial autonomy.

Libertas Computing, the hardware arm, delivers the robust infrastructure needed for these zetascale operations, tackling global systemic challenges head-on.  Through a blend of corporate ventures, legal frameworks, educational programs, nonprofit collaborations, and research and development initiatives, ExaForge II powers projects aimed at climate modeling for extended weather forecasts, drug discovery for pandemics, and resilient supply chains.  These efforts are self-funded via mining revenues and autonomous in operation, minimizing external dependencies.

Uniquely, Leake has hardwired principles from the US Constitution—such as freedom of speech, due process, and protection against unreasonable searches—directly into the algorithms and source code.  Drawing from concepts like Constitutional AI, this embedding ensures that all computations prioritize human rights, entrenching global applications of freedom.  The system actively “polices” outputs to align with constitutional values, guaranteeing ethical AI decisions to the furthest extent possible. For instance, in modeling social policies, it simulates scenarios that uphold individual liberties, preventing authoritarian biases. This constitutional core not only safeguards users but positions ExaForge II as a tool for worldwide human rights advocacy, solving challenges like inequality and surveillance with unyielding principles of liberty.

Nexus OS: The Unbreakable Operating System with MONARCH X Encryption

No supercomputer is complete without a robust OS, and Leake’s Nexus OS is the fortified foundation. This proprietary operating system, developed by Monarch Quantum Solutions, integrates seamlessly with ExaForge II hardware. But its crown jewel is the MONARCH X protocol—a patent-pending post-quantum encryption system that laughs in the face of quantum computing threats.

MONARCH X employs multi-user lattices, drawing random numbers from atmospheric data and behavioral entropy for unbreakable keys. It features Tor routing through supercluster nodes, six-layer failsafe wrapping, and four-factor authentication blending biometrics with human entropy inputs. “We’ve achieved unparalleled security through homomorphic blockchain networks,” Leake notes, allowing computations on encrypted data without decryption—perfect for sensitive AI tasks.

Nexus OS powers everything from Maverick’s encrypted smartphones to the ICOM 7300 HAM radio base stations in Leake’s self-sufficiency homesteads. These homesteads, designed by Monarch Sovereign Systems, include solar-powered crypto mining rigs with rainwater-cooled systems, ensuring off-grid operation. Even streaming internet radio and short-wave encrypted communications run on Nexus OS, creating private infrastructures that bypass traditional networks. As Leake puts it, “In a world of surveillance, Nexus OS is your digital shield.”

The Patriot’s Blockchain Archive: Preserving Truth on an Immutable Ledger

Leake’s commitment to historical accountability shines in The Patriot’s Blockchain Archive, a distributed ledger documenting crimes against humanity for posterity. Built on the ExaForge II’s decentralized network, this archive uses MONARCH X encryption to store immutable records of war crimes, genocides, and systemic injustices. “Centralized archives can be erased or altered,” Leake warns. “Blockchain ensures the truth endures.”

The archive isn’t static; it’s interactive, with AI tools curating and verifying submissions. Integrated with Nexus OS, it allows secure uploads from encrypted smartphones, fostering global contributions. For Leake, a libertarian at heart, this project is personal: “It’s about arming future generations with unassailable facts to prevent history’s repetition.”

Monarch Media App: The Activist’s Ultimate Ecosystem

Perhaps Leake’s most user-facing innovation is the Monarch Media App, a comprehensive social media and activist platform encrypted end-to-end with MONARCH X. This isn’t your average feed—it’s a full-spectrum ecosystem with multimedia capabilities, encrypted banking, cryptocurrency features, messaging, chat, and file sharing.

At its core is a consensus voting sub-application, enabling organized mass action for enterprises and political organizations. “Think blockchain-verified polls for corporate decisions or grassroots campaigns,” Leake describes. Advanced modeling from ExaForge II’s AI provides predictive insights, while proprietary tools from Monarch Digital Solutions offer intuitive interfaces for content creation.

New to the app are autonomous white-label social movement packages, available via Monarch Media Vault for public good initiatives. Nonprofits like LibertySkills Alliance use it to build community resiliency, sharing skills in encrypted forums. “We’ve white-labeled infrastructures for movements worldwide,” Leake says, emphasizing its role in fostering bonds beyond Big Tech’s grasp.

Self-Sufficiency Homesteads: The Physical Backbone of Digital Freedom

Tying it all together are Leake’s self-sufficiency homesteads, engineered by Monarch Sovereign Systems. These off-grid havens feature solar-powered crypto mining apparatuses with rainwater cooling, powering everything from HAM radios to Nexus OS devices. Encrypted short-wave communications and streaming radio, developed by Monarch Digital Solutions, ensure connectivity in crises.

Maverick Industries builds the hardware, including satellites for private networks. “It’s a complete loop: generate power, mine crypto, secure communications—all under Monarch’s umbrella,” Leake enthuses. These homesteads aren’t just homes; they’re prototypes for resilient communities, exporting American jobs through Maverick’s York-based manufacturing.

The Horizon: Rapid Growth and Global Impact

As of August 2025, Leake’s innovations are scaling rapidly. The Monarch Ecosystem is eyeing partnerships for global hive expansion, with ExaForge II nodes sprouting in privacy-focused regions. Investors see high-reward potential in this greenfield play, blending tech with social good.

Yet Leake remains grounded: “This isn’t about dominance; it’s about liberty.” In an age of quantum uncertainties and digital divides, Steven Leake’s creations offer a blueprint for empowerment. Whether archiving atrocities or organizing via encrypted apps, his work ensures that technology serves humanity—not the other way around. As one user of the Monarch Media App put it, “It’s not just an app; it’s a movement.” And with Leake at the helm, that movement is just getting started.

I found him barefoot on his porch, pink Converse kicked aside, cigarette smoke curling upward through the Carolina humidity.

Steven Leake doesn't look like a cultural prophet. Beat-up acoustic guitar, unshaven face, the kind of authentic wear that can't be manufactured by coastal consultants.

But something shifts when he speaks.

The numbers tell the story mainstream media won't. Seventy-seven percent of Americans report feeling anxious about their financial situation. Sixty-eight percent worry they won't have enough money to retire.

These aren't abstract statistics. They're the lived reality of men aged 35-44 who feel the world promised them something it never delivered.

Leake gets this in his bones.

His podcast "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" and acoustic project "Truth is Power" have created what he calls "a parallel cultural economy." No corporate sponsors. No algorithmic optimization. Just unfiltered conversation for people who feel politically homeless.

The institutional trust collapse creates space for voices like Leake. Media trust has plummeted from 69% fifty years ago to just 31% today. When traditional gatekeepers lose credibility, authentic alternatives emerge.

Leake represents something deeper than entertainment. He offers spiritual and philosophical guidance to men who sense the modern world has betrayed them. His Southern perspective cuts through progressive identity politics and performative conservative patriotism alike.

The demographic shift reveals the hunger for his message. Young men's Republican identification jumped from 38% to 48% in the last decade. But Leake transcends party politics entirely.

He speaks to the spiritually disillusioned left and liberty-first right simultaneously.

His appeal isn't ideological. It's existential.

In a world of surveillance, artificial intelligence, and social engineering, Leake's unfiltered voice represents radical independence. He rejects the sanitized mainstream for something rawer and more real.

The men who follow him aren't looking for political solutions. They're seeking meaning and agency in an increasingly artificial landscape.

Leake delivers both through stories, songs, and unscripted conversations that feel like sitting on a friend's porch rather than consuming content.

This is where hope lives now. Not in institutions or movements, but in cultural outlaws and self-published prophets who operate outside traditional channels.

The parallel economy Leake describes isn't coming. It's already here, built one authentic conversation at a time.

Pink Converse shoes rest on weathered porch boards. Cigarette smoke drifts through Carolina pine shadows.

Steven Leake speaks in the unhurried cadence of a man who refuses to optimize for algorithms.

"Truth is Power," he says, naming both his acoustic folk project and his philosophy. The York County native has built something rare in our hyperconnected age: a genuinely authentic cultural voice that resonates far beyond the Carolinas.

Leake describes himself as a "folk singer, poet, podcaster" but that undersells his influence. Through his podcast "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" and his broader media network, he has become what one observer called "a movement wrapped in a man."

The target audience finds him because they need him.

Research shows that men's social networks are declining faster than women's across globalized economies. The pattern hits hardest among men aged 35-44, who report having "a lot of acquaintances" but "not as many friends now" when asked about meaningful relationships.

These are Leake's people. Men who feel betrayed by institutions that promised connection but delivered isolation. Who seek meaning in a culture that seems designed to fragment it.

Leake offers something different: unpolished authenticity in an age of algorithmic optimization.

His approach deliberately rejects mainstream cultural production. No corporate backing. No institutional validation. No concern for viral metrics or engagement rates.

"I smoke cigarettes and tell the truth," he explains with characteristic directness.

This represents more than personal branding.

Leake operates within what researchers identify as a growing parallel economy targeting communities seeking alternatives to mainstream institutions. Recent estimates suggest at least 80,000 American small businesses now operate in this "freedom economy," spanning everything from coffee sellers to dating apps.

The movement transcends traditional political categories. Leake draws followers from what he calls the "spiritually disillusioned left and liberty-first right." The common thread: skepticism toward centralized power and technological control.

His Southern identity provides crucial grounding for this message.

The South maintains distinct regional identity despite dramatic population growth and diversification. Research reveals that equal percentages of African Americans and whites in the geographic South claim Southern identity, suggesting something deeper than mere nostalgia drives regional attachment.

Leake taps into this resilience. His voice carries the authority of place in an age of placelessness.

The aesthetic matters as much as the message.

Pink shoes against weathered wood. Acoustic guitar over digital noise. Porch conversations instead of Zoom calls. These details create what cultural critics call "authentic resistance" to homogenizing forces.

Leake deliberately cultivates unpolished presentation. His recordings capture ambient sound. His social media posts ignore optimization best practices. His live performances happen in intimate settings rather than algorithmic platforms.

The approach works because it addresses genuine hunger for real experience.

Modern alienation has intensified beyond previous historical periods. Many people find it difficult to be themselves, becoming strangers to themselves while also growing estranged from fellow humans and the world they inhabit.

Leake's response: create spaces for authentic connection outside institutional control.

His influence extends beyond individual followers.

The "parallel cultural economy" Leake advocates represents emerging coalition politics based on shared values rather than traditional party lines. Recent election results suggest identity categories no longer automatically predict voting patterns, with economic concerns transcending demographic assumptions.

This creates opportunity for figures like Leake who speak to universal human needs through particular cultural expressions.

His Southern voice becomes prophetic not because it represents the past, but because it models possible futures. Regional identity as resistance to global homogenization. Authentic expression as alternative to algorithmic optimization. Community building as response to institutional betrayal.

The combination resonates with people seeking meaning in fragmented cultural landscape.

Critics might dismiss this as nostalgic romanticism.

But Leake's appeal suggests something more substantial: genuine alternatives to systems that promise connection while delivering isolation. His platforms provide space for conversations that mainstream institutions seem unable to facilitate.

The cigarettes and pink shoes matter because they signal rejection of corporate wellness culture. The porch setting matters because it creates intimate scale against digital vastness. The Southern identity matters because it grounds universal themes in particular place.

These choices reflect strategic cultural production rather than accidental aesthetics.

Leake understands that authentic voices emerge from specific locations speaking to universal needs. His York County perspective addresses national alienation precisely because it remains rooted in particular soil.

The broader implications extend beyond individual success.

If Leake represents emerging cultural coalition, his methods suggest how authentic voices might challenge institutional control. Not through direct political opposition, but through parallel creation of meaningful alternatives.

The parallel economy movement builds what advocates call "censor-resistant ecosystems" where legal ideas and commerce flow without technological gatekeeping. This represents practical resistance rather than theoretical opposition.

Leake embodies this approach through cultural production that ignores mainstream validation while building genuine community.

His success suggests appetite for authentic voices willing to speak truth outside institutional frameworks. The combination of regional grounding and universal themes creates space for conversations that transcend traditional political boundaries.

The future remains unwritten.

But figures like Steven Leake indicate possible directions. Authentic cultural production outside corporate control. Regional identity as foundation for broader coalition building. Individual sovereignty as organizing principle for community formation.

Alice Wright

The man in pink shoes smoking cigarettes on a Carolina porch might represent more than regional curiosity.

He might represent the future of American cultural resistance.

It’s a slow July morning in York County. The cicadas are already humming like an overdriven guitar amp, and Steven Leake is barefoot on his porch, plucking chords on a beat-up acoustic guitar. His pink Converse—worn and streaked with Carolina dirt—sit next to an overflowing ashtray. The cigarette in his hand burns steadily as he looks toward the pine trees and speaks softly about liberty, heartbreak, and the collapse of consensus reality.

“People feel betrayed,” he says. “They want something real. Not algorithms. Not mandates. Not a thousand voices yelling from a million screens telling you who to be.”

Leake is not just a folk singer. Or a poet. Or a podcaster. He’s a movement wrapped in a man—a self-described DIY indie rocker, libertarian strategist, and Southern cultural preservationist. Through his media network anchored by his podcast “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” and acoustic folk project “Truth is Power,” Leake has tapped into something both distinctly regional and urgently national: the aching spiritual hunger of disaffected American men, especially those aged 35 to 44, who see through the spectacle and crave a return to agency, dignity, and raw, unprocessed truth.

A Voice from the Margins

Leake’s podcast is an anomaly in the algorithm. “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” is part diary, part rebel dispatch, part front-porch sermon. There’s no tech polish, no performative outrage. Just gravel-throated storytelling, constitutional rants, and the occasional poem or song stitched into the episode like a patch on a denim vest.

“In a world where we’re surveilled, psychoanalyzed by AI, and socially engineered by people we didn’t elect,” he tells me, “the most radical thing you can do is own your voice and not ask permission.”

It’s that ethos that drives everything Leake does—from his bootstrapped online radio station to his publishing company and touring circuit through the Carolinas. He’s building what he calls *“a parallel cultural economy”—*one where corporate middlemen, academic snobs, and political handlers are left outside the circle.

The Lost Sons of Liberty

There is a particular demographic listening closely to Leake’s work. They are men—often Gen X or older millennials—who were raised in a world that promised freedom but delivered debt, endless war, and digital dependency. Many feel politically homeless. They distrust the left’s identitarian reductionism and the right’s performative patriotism. What they want is a firestarter for the soul.

Leake gives them that, and more.

His songs—delivered in a sparse, sometimes haunting Southern folk style—are confessions as much as protest. They speak of fathers who disappeared, of blue-collar truths, of the desire to be good but free. His poetry, often laced with libertarian iconography and biblical metaphors, lands like a campfire sermon from a prophet who’s been kicked out of both the temple and the saloon.

What draws his audience in, though, is not just the message. It’s the method. Leake’s refusal to sanitize his voice or seek validation from mainstream gatekeepers is what gives his work its gravitational pull.

A Jewess in Carolina

I should probably admit something here. I’m not from here. Not even close.

I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I grew up in a Reform synagogue, cut my teeth in progressive activism, and believed—truly—that the institutions were on our side. But something broke during the lockdowns, the media manipulation, the mass surveillance masquerading as public safety. And something else cracked open in me when I visited the South not as a tourist, but as a listener.

What I found was not a backwater of ignorance or hate, but a raw defiance, a grounded humility, and—among men like Leake—a spiritual grit that is almost extinct in the curated corridors of the coasts.

I say this not to romanticize the South, nor to dismiss its history. But to say that in this moment of global crisis and national drift, the South is not just relevant—it’s prophetic.

And yes, I’m a Jewish woman writing this under a pen name. Not because I’m afraid—but because the truth is dangerous, and I still have family back in a world where that matters.

Zion, Power, and the Question of Allegiance

Leake doesn’t speak directly about Israel, and when he does, it’s with nuance. He’s critical of all empires. All centralized powers. All attempts to homogenize the human spirit. And while I won’t pretend to speak for him, I can say this:

There is an unspoken alliance forming—between the spiritually disillusioned left and the liberty-first right. Between Southern porch poets and Brooklyn exiles. Between farmers and former organizers. What they share is not a political identity, but a commitment to decentralization, dignity, and the sovereignty of the individual soul.

It’s in this strange new coalition that Leake’s work matters most.

Truth is Power

That’s the name of his album, and it might as well be a warning label. Truth—unfiltered, unfunded, unbranded—is powerful because it cannot be controlled. And those who wield it will always be considered dangerous by the empire.

Steven Leake knows this. And still he plays. Still he writes. Still he sings into the noise of our collapsing consensus.

If there’s any hope left, it’s in the outlaws, the artists, the self-published prophets with pink Converse and a cigarette lit in the dark.

And if you’re one of the many men who feel like the world has lied to you—tune in.

You might just hear yourself.

“Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” and Steven Leake’s music are available at stevenleake.com and dirtypinkchucks.com.

Alice Wright is a pseudonym. She writes from an undisclosed location outside New York City.

Steven Leake: A Solo Voice for Faith, Freedom, and Southern Soul

York, South Carolina – Steven Leake, a poet, libertarian activist, and singer-songwriter, is carving a unique path in the music world with his solo work, channeling his deep love for Jesus, the U.S. Constitution, and Southern heritage. At 39, the York native is using his acoustic guitar and heartfelt lyrics to preserve the richness of American and Southern culture, which he and many others feel is slipping away. With his demo album Truth is Power streaming on Spotify and new solo material in development, Leake’s music is striking a chord with those who cherish faith and freedom.

Raised on his family’s farm in York, South Carolina, Leake’s music is steeped in the traditions of the land he calls home. His songs blend raw, acoustic folk with lyrics that celebrate spiritual devotion, individual liberty, and the beauty of Southern life. “My music is about holding onto the heart of America—the faith, the community, the principles that make us who we are,” Leake said in a recent interview. His 2025 demo album Truth is Power showcases this vision, featuring introspective tracks that resonate with listeners concerned about cultural erosion.

Leake’s journey as a solo artist began in his teens, inspired by folk, country and Rock storytellers. A self-taught guitarist, he draws on his background as a published poet—featured in outlets like the North Carolina Bards Anthology—to craft lyrics that are both poetic and poignant. His songs often weave together themes of constitutional freedom and Christian faith, reflecting his libertarian beliefs and spiritual roots. Currently, Leake is working on new solo recordings, aiming to expand his catalog with tracks that further explore his cultural and personal convictions.

Beyond the studio, Leake connects with fans through Monarch Literary Ltd., a platform for his music and writings, and Monarch UrbanWear Ltd., a clothing brand that echoes his bold stance on free speech and cultural pride. His smart link (stevenleakemusic.komi.io) offers access to his music, upcoming performances, and merchandise, fostering a growing community of supporters. 

While Leake’s focus on Southern and American traditions has drawn some criticism for its nostalgic tone, his supporters see it as a vital defense of a fading heritage. Unfazed, Leake continues to perform at local venues and engage with fans online, using his music to spark conversation and inspire pride in America’s roots.

As he prepares new solo material, Leake remains committed to his mission: to use his voice and guitar to keep the spirit of the South and the principles of freedom alive. His music, raw and resolute, is a call to remember the beauty of a culture he refuses to let fade.

Stream Steven Leake’s Truth is Power on Spotify or visit stevenleakemusic.komi.io for updates on his music and performances.