people who do not have the opportunity to raise their voice, who will never be able to raise their voices," Ai said.

"This is not just one generation. In the past 60 years there have been innumerable amounts of people who have been killed or taken away from their homes, even tortured to death."

Ai has used his art to draw attention to injustices in China and the need for rule of law. His video depicts an insensitive, overbearing state power that ignores individual rights.

The explicit Mandarin lyrics of "Dumbass" are sung by Ai himself, who said he has found in music a therapeutic way to break through the memories of his ordeal.

The music was composed by Zuoxiao Zuzhou, a Beijing-based heavy-metal artist and friend of Ai who has alsoof liver cancer when John was 9. The father's decline was rapid — a six-month prognosis turned into six weeks before he passed — and the child had no coping mechanism and little support system.

"I didn't know too much about what death was; why God would take them," Wall recalled. "Now I understand, but at that point, there was so much anger and frustration. My anger started building up, and I wouldn't trust people."

His mom worked constantly to feed and house him and his older sister, who got him to his games. He'd revolt whenever a coach acted the least bit assertive.

"Invariably I wouldn't trust my coach. I wouldn't listen to him because I never had a father figure," Wall said. "I'd say, 'He's lying. He's not telling