"They don't believe me. They don't believe who I am. They said that all the work that I'm doing, my art and my advocacy work—they said that it's not real. They say I am a clear and present threat to the community."
"I've seen hard moments in film before, I've seen hard moments talked about in music—really hard moments—and this was one of the hardest moments in my life. I love [Shakespeare's] Titus Andronicus—it's a tragic story, and I remember reading that and I was, like, 'this is art too'—it doesn't always have to be this fairytale Disney ending."
JJ'88, a hip-hop artist incarcerated since age 15 for a 2004 shooting, received a denied resentencing request in 2020 after spending more years in prison than outside it. During an emotional phone call with his father, he expresses frustration that authorities dismiss his artistic and advocacy work as inauthentic, labeling him a threat despite his rehabilitation efforts. Filmmaker Contessa Gayles, who was present during the call, initially hesitated to continue their documentary project but Jacobs chose to proceed. He draws parallels to Shakespeare's tragic works, accepting that his story may not have a conventional happy ending but represents authentic human experience and wisdom worth documenting.
#criminal-justice-reform #incarceration-and-rehabilitation #hip-hop-and-art-activism #documentary-filmmaking #resentencing-denial
Read at www.npr.org
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]