The notorious Cameroonian prison with its own record label
The facility has its own "taxis" (inmates who whizz through congested courtyards on foot to hand deliver messages), its own law enforcement (burly prisoners who help stretched guards police the facility) and market (a string of stalls where convicts sell and buy goodies, like fried cassava and beignet pastries).Basically, the occupants of New Bell have adapted the jail's slack laws to work for them. The clearest example of this spirit is Jail Time Records, an on-site music studio and label making mini stars out of the most talented prisoners.Empereur, the feared leader of gangs inside and outside of the prison, has amassed 24,000 YouTube views with a music video filmed entirely in prison.Songs from the inmates have gained fans from as far away as South Africa, the US and Argentina, while earlier this year Jail Time Records put on a huge concert for the prisoners in New Bell's courtyard. "It's this instrument of resistance… where we can really share friendship, love and our voices can be heard," Steve Happi, the former inmate who co-founded Jail Time Records, tells the BBC's Talking Movies programme."We don't think anymore about the four walls - we find the freedom."The Jail Time Records studio is rudimentary - a small, sweaty recording booth attached to a room inhabited by a solitary computer.But it is also the site of great catharsis and creativity, as per a recent, acclaimed documentary named after the studio.Directed by Happi and Italian artist Dione Roach, his Jail Time Records co-founder, it was filmed in New Bell over six years. Last month it won three prizes, including best documentary feature, at New York's Tribeca film festival.In the film, a prisoner named Stone raps into the studio's microphone: "Heart of stone, it's war. My senses shatter like broken glass."I'm closed and tight like a cell door. No solid ground I slip like a fish."Stone, who used to be a soldier in Cameroon's presidential guard, was sentenced to 10 years in New Bell for robbery and illegal possession of firearms. He insists he is not guilty.The film captures him trying - often unsuccessfully - to reach his young daughter Maira on the phone."It's been a long time. She needs to hear my voice from time to time, so she doesn't forget about her father," he says in a voice message to a family member, after failing to get through to Maira yet again.The music video for Heart of Stone is a typical Jail Time Records affair. The production value is high, storytelling is captivating and hordes of fellow inmates get involved as actors and crew. "The music that comes out of there is amazing," says Taika Waititi, the New Zealand Oscar-winning director who, with his wife, the singer Rita Ora, served as an executive producer for the Jail Time Records documentary. "Just in terms of the power of art in relation to redemption and what that can mean to someone who, you know, some of these people are in prison for life. I think having an outlet is an incredibly powerful and humane thing," he says.Jail Time Records was founded in 2018, when Roach volunteered for a non-profit organisation running events inside New Bell. During a dance class for the prisoners, a crew of rappers took over the microphone and began freestyling. Impressed by their performance, she asked the prison authorities for permission to start up a studio.The powers that be were receptive and so Roach enlisted Happi to run the studio as a producer and sound engineer.According to Happi, he ended up in New Bell following a family argument over what should be done with his late father's body. Amid the dispute, his aunt, a high court judge, allegedly arranged for him to be thrown into jail for killing his father. He was acquitted of the crime two years later, Jail Time Records says. In 2022, Happi, Roach and the prisoners released an album named Jail Time Vol 1. As is customary for Jail Time Records' music, half the profit from the a
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