Jail Time Records: Music and Redemption in Cameroon's New Bell Prison

Jail Time Records, an on-site music studio and label at New Bell prison in Douala, Cameroon, has turned inmates into musical artists, with songs gaining international fans and a documentary winning three prizes at the Tribeca Film Festival. Co-founded by former inmate Steve Happi and Italian artist Dione Roach in 2018, the label has released an album, Jail Time Vol 1, in 2022, with half the profits going to artists. The documentary, filmed over six years, features prisoners like Empereur, whose music video has 24,000 YouTube views, and Stone, a former presidential guard rapping about his incarceration. The project has expanded to a studio in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 2023. New Bell holds 4,700 prisoners at four times its capacity, with unsanitary conditions and a history of violence, including a 2008 breakout attempt where guards killed 16 inmates. The label's first female artist, Jeje, debuted in 2022. Taika Waititi and Rita Ora served as executive producers for the documentary.