Prisoners Create Award-Winning Album Amidst Brutal Conditions

2025-06-05 00:00:41.232

Chance, a San Diego-based poet and rapper, wrote the song "Locked Down" while imprisoned in Phoenix, Arizona, during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. The song is part of her self-published collection, "Pandemic Soup for the Soul." "Locked Down" is also featured on "Bending the Bars," a hip-hop album by artists formerly or currently incarcerated in Florida's Broward County jails. The album was organized by Chip, a south Florida abolitionist organization that provides support to inmates. The organization began receiving calls in April 2020 about medical neglect, abuse, and fear perpetuated by guards. Broward County jails are known for their lawlessness and lack of oversight, with 21 inmates reported dead since 2021. Chip used the data gathered to support a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Florida and Disability Rights Florida. The album's creation stemmed from inmates' desire to share their art, using two phones to record songs, overcoming significant technical and logistical challenges. Musicians inside used two phones to record, one as a microphone and the other to listen to the beat. Chip covered the costs of calls, and a sound engineer helped with production. The album features a variety of genres, including Caribbean beats, southern bass, and Miami drill, and reflects themes of love, loneliness, hope, and demands for systemic change. The album's production was challenging due to censorship and limited access to communication. Despite these challenges, "Bending the Bars" is a polished and clear album showcasing the talent of the incarcerated artists. The project serves as a model for interacting with and caring for those in the prison system, and Chip plans to release a documentary about the process in 2026. Gary Field, an incarcerated organizer, writer, and scholar, emphasizes the ongoing societal abuse inherent in the prison-industrial complex, urging people to recognize, organize, and speak out against it.