Ghazi Faisal Al-Muliafi’s journey began with one statement from his grandfather, who was once a Kuwaiti pearl diving shipmaster: “All the men died at sea”. Now an ethnomusicologist at NYU Abu Dhabi, Ghazi has spent his career researching Kuwaiti pearl diving music and the lives of the pearl divers in order to connect with his ancestral past. In the process, however, he may have uncovered long lost narratives that have larger implications on how we think about cultural appropriation, tradition, and national identity. This episode is a product of the Ignite Change Fellowship: a partnership between the Cross-Cutting Initiative on Inequality, the NYU Production Lab, and the Wasserman Center for Career Development.