Today on the Breakfast Club, James 'JJ'88' Jacobs, Contessa Gayles & Richie Reseda Talk 'Songs From The Hole,' Prison To Purpose. Listen For More!
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Every day A waiting up the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You're fineish for y'all dump morning.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Everybody is DJ Envy, just hilarious, charlamage.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
God.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
We are the Breakfast Club, long the Roses. Here today
we got some special guest in the building from the
documentary on Netflix, Songs from the Whole. We have James
Jacobs JJ eighty eight. We have Contessa Gales and Richie Recida. Welcome,
how you guys feeling.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's on Netflix right now, by the way, Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
How y'all feeling?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Feeling gravy to be here now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
For people that haven't seen the documentary, break down what
the documentary is about.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, it's a documentary visual album. We tell the story
of my life. When I was fifteen, I was incarcerated
for a second degree murder and during that time I
spent eighteen years in prison, and during that time I
wrote an album. I met him, We produced and recorded
that album in prison, and I wrote the visuals. We
met Contesta and it's good of his film.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Essentially. Also, I want to ask you something.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
You know, fifteen and you committed a crime it was murder,
and then three days later your brother was killed. But
how did those two events so close together, I guess
shape your sense of identity and ultimately give you purpose.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I guess, oh yeah, Well, at first it took me
down like a really dark like mental place, and after
coming through like you know, suicidal ideations, and just at
first I just felt like, at first I just felt
kind of purposeless. I took a life which at fifteen
(01:36):
it's kind of hard to hold and really recognize the
gravity of it. But by the time I was eighteen
and in prison, I just kind of felt worthless and
without hope. And losing my brother within that span was
kind of like he was kind of who I was
emulating and admiring growing up.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
So it really devastated me.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
And however, like through music is like it kind of
gave me a place to talk about it and talk
about what me and the homies was just experiencing what
me and my family went through, and so through I
guess through music is where I kind of found purpose
in my story and where I could use it.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I want to talk about when you was fifteen, man,
because you said something that I often feel like with
these kids, and all all of us were kids at
once some point, you make a terrible choice a temporary
decision at leads. I mean if temporary feeling leads to
a permanent decision. You know, do you really understand the
consequences of your actions at that time?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I mean not in the way that I do now
when you're fifteen, you know. I mean, I think when
I was a kid, I knew if you shoot.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Someone, they could die.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Like I know that I've seen people die, I've seen
violence in my community, but I don't think I knew
what it meant for real, like the finality of it
at fifteen. I don't think I knew truly at fifteen
the impact it was having not only on this person
but their family.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
When there's people.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
That I've like got back in touch with since I
got home, who were you know, there that night and
had to witness that, and that night altered their life.
And I didn't learn that until I was in my thirties.
So you don't at fifteen. You don't understand the gravity
of it, but you do understand that it is serious.
And the older I got, the more mature I became,
(03:35):
the more I understood how serious it is, which is
why we made this film.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
For real, there you were charged as an adult, not
a child. Why was that.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Because California is racist to put it simple.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yes, at fifteen serving eighteen years, it just seems like
in any other state you would have been charged as
a child and giving a second chance, another opportunity on.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Nah, They doing it in other states too, They charged,
They charged kids as adults because they want to take
away futures and they have a belief in this like
punishment system. We live in a culture where revenge is normal.
We value it as a culture. Revenge is something that
(04:21):
we explore. Me being a perpetrator of murder and having
my brother murdered, it's something that I had to face
for myself, you know. So the reason why they charge
us as adults when we're kids is because they believe
in revenge. They believe in retribution, They believe in eye
for an eye.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
At fifteen years old, when you were sending it in
front of the judge, not really understanding what's happening in
your sentence. In the doc, you talk about looking over
to your attorney and being like, so when am I
going home?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (04:49):
Right, at that moment, as a kid, what did you
need outside of just being locked away behind bars? Like
what could they have given you that would have actually,
like in that moment, help to reform.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Do you mean, like after I've committed murder, Like what
to offer a kid?
Speaker 6 (05:05):
Yeah? Like, what what should be the you know, the
rehabilitation of a person that is fifteen years old, that
murders a person.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I don't know what it should be. I can tell
you what I did. What helped me was like just
having safe places to talk about it. So I didn't
to talk about what I had done. I don't think
I needed to necessarily be locked away once I committed murder.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
I knew it was foul. I felt the seriousness of it.
It wasn't like I was.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I wasn't celebrated by my homies, So I knew that
this was not the move to make. But I needed
to understand why, and I didn't get that opportunity in court.
They don't give you an opportunity to understand why you
are in this moment. How serious it is that that
you have taken a life and there's no plan to
(06:00):
help you mature through it and process it.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
You know, you said you weren't celebrated. You also talk
a lot about how you thought, like you know, this
is kind of like a song like we talked about it.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
In the songs the song is over.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
Yeah, so you had an idea of what you thought
committing a crime would be like, and then you actually
found yourself committing Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
I mean that's true for a lot of my homies.
We listen to music and this is no, this is
no like condemnation on like hip hop and the music
we grow up on. I think it's just true that
when I listen to music as a kid, when I
watch films as a kid, and I saw violence, it
didn't seem you know, the film cuts off and then
(06:42):
I see the nigga on the red carpet. Excuse me,
I see you on the red carpet, like it's regular.
You don't really understand that that person in that story
didn't come back in real life.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
And so as a kid, I thought, you know, in two.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Thousand and three, two thousand and four, I was listening
to get Richard, I trying, and like that was the
epitome of being against And so once I realized after
you know, as a kid, it's not it ain't you know,
just a song. It's like when you go back to
your homies, they gonna look at you and they gonna
be scared of They gonna look at you and they
(07:19):
gonna have real fear, Like what did you just do?
Speaker 5 (07:21):
The homies ask me what you just do?
Speaker 7 (07:23):
Fool?
Speaker 5 (07:24):
What did you do? Like, why did you do that?
The homie?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Everybody I know who had a murder in prison, like
they none of them got dapped up when they.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Homies found out.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Everybody got what they might talk about it and and
even like they tell they tell war stories, sure, but
it's like not not after it happened. I don't know
nobody who got dapped up directly after, like, oh we
did that, Let's go. Them niggas is in that car, quiet, smoking,
(07:56):
drinking them niggas is seriously quiet. It ain't no game,
Like that's That's what I came to realize that, you know,
you take a life.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
It ain't it ain't.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
It ain't fun, it's not it's not honorable to me,
especially in the context of just regular street like.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Ship contesting and Richie ill y'all can make with James.
The album tell the story.
Speaker 8 (08:21):
So what what Adya didn't share was that he wrote
the music that's in the film in solitary confinement after
he got out of solitary. He transferred to the prison
where Richie was at and that's how they met. He
could talk about how they collaborated more on the music.
But I met the both of them when I was
filming a documentary for CNN. I used to work at CNN,
(08:43):
and the last project I did for them was a
feature called the Feminists on Cell Black Wife, and it
was about a group that Richie had co founded in
prison and was leading for his fellow incarcerated men with
they're reading feminist literature like Belle Hooks and you know,
learning about patriarchy and how it shows up in their
lives and unlearning it. So Richie was leading that group
(09:05):
and eighty eight was a participant and a co facilitator
of that group. And that was the first time that
I heard a little bit of eighty eight story. And
it was the last day of filming that documentary had
nothing to do with the group, but the two of
them were in the prison gym and it was Richie's
last day at the prison. He was about to be
transferred to finish his sentence somewhere else, and they had
(09:27):
the prison rental keyboard, and Richie had the keyboard on
a trash Can and eighty eight was singing and rapping
some of those songs that he wrote in solitary, and
there was a group of the guys gathered around and
like they knew all the lyrics, so you could tell
like this is you know, something that they've been sharing.
And I was just struck by, like how powerful the
music was, how much storytelling there was in eighty eight lyrics,
(09:51):
But I didn't know the context of you know, his
story and the relationship between that and the music and
how he came to the whole and writing that music
in the whole. Fast forward a year after that film
came out, they both approached me about, you know, would
you want to work on a visual album using eighty
eight's music? You know you heard some of it. I
was like, some me what you got, and I once
(10:15):
I like listen to the recordings and really like, over
the course of our development, got to know more about
how eighty eight came to the whole and then writing
the music there, and then what they were able to
do inside producing a whole album. I knew that we
had something really special that could really be a testimony,
like eighty eight story is a testimony, and the music
(10:36):
is so impactful in being able to like hold the
narrative and tell his story. So we started collaborating from
there and really like evolved our relationship from this like
kind of more traditional space of like journalistic. I was
the filmmaker, they were the film participants to like co
collaborators on this project, and it was a true collaboration,
like eighty eight was onside the whole time. We were
(10:59):
eight months into the edit when he was released, and
we managed to figure out how to collaborate across the
prison walls through phone calls, through letters, you know, fifteen
minute phone calls at a time. That's how we met.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I got a two paul question for you, eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
We're gonna ask Richie how he met, because I know
you asked both from Richie and.
Speaker 8 (11:16):
Yeah, che.
Speaker 7 (11:20):
I had met eighty eight while I was in prison.
I had just released an album from prison, so everybody
at the prison kind of knew me as a producer.
So in eighty eight got to the yard, the people
who knew him from other prisons were like, you got
to meet eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You got to meet eighty eight, And you know, I.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Wasn't a lot of everybody in prison think they can
rap just like everybody on the streets.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
I was.
Speaker 7 (11:44):
I wasn't like in a rush to meet him necessarily.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I was like, okay, But.
Speaker 7 (11:51):
When I did meet him. We have a homie named
Taleb who was trying to put together a poetry book.
So he was bringing all these artists together. And we
had met in the in the law library and I
heard him rap and sing, and I was blown away. Honestly,
he could both rap and sing very well, which a
lot of people can't do. Usually they do one well
(12:13):
and then the other they kind of do for fun.
And the story he was telling and the position he
had on it, it's not an easy thing to make
music that doesn't necessarily glorify or judge the streets. And
I was like, Yo, let's let's let's make this album.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
You had only equipment in jail. You were able to
have the equipment in jail.
Speaker 7 (12:35):
Nah, we broke the rules. The way that we made
the album was against the rules. Well, yell out now,
but I can't tell you because it's people in who
still make music that way. But yeah, the way we
made this album in prison was completely against the rules.
The prison was against it in every way. They ran
up in my cell. They threatened to send me to
(12:55):
the hole for making music, and.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
But it was like they denied me at for making music. Really,
I was able to be.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
A part of a collaboration that Richie was EPN and
it featured incarcerated artists and free artists. And when I
got to board, they named that It's like a reason
why I was in danger to society is that you
make music.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Wow.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Yeah, it's important to point out he had life. He
wasn't sentenced to eighteen years. He was sentenced to forty
years to double life. So you know, we didn't know
when eighty eight was coming home. We knew spiritually he
was coming home, but we didn't know when he was
coming home. So when we finished the album, we were like,
you know, typically you finish, you do an album, then
you tore it, and we didn't have that opportunity with him.
So we're like, let's do a visual album, and that's
(13:43):
kind of how the idea began. Then we approached contestant.
She built it out to an actual film.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
One other question, is it true that you can't profit
off of a crime that was done?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Is that true?
Speaker 7 (13:53):
Yeah, So in California, the way that the law is
written is that basically you can't take if you're incarcerated
in California, you can't talk about your crime in a
way that makes you money. So you can't write a
book about it and make money. You can't make music
about it or a film or anything and make money.
All of that typically has to go to the people
who are impacted by about the crime. And eighty eight's
(14:15):
case is unique in that he didn't. The album in
the film is not about the fact that he harmed somebody,
but rather that he had committed harm and he had
been harmed, that his brother was murdered. So, but we
also didn't release it until you got out.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
During your time in solitary of five in eighty eight,
like you turned music into a lifeline, right, Like what
was the moment you realized music was an escape for you?
And I know that probably what kept you saying in
the whole.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, as soon as I got in and when I
as soon as I got locked up, I knew I
grew up with music. I grew up in a church,
I grew up singing, I grew up rapping. I started
like writing in about the seventh grade. So when I
got locked up, you don't know what the hell to do.
When you're a kid just in a box kind of
you're just sitting there thinking, you're listening different sounds, and
(15:05):
suddenly next to me, the cell next to me is
the homie we calling Johnny West, Jonathan Marquez. He beating
on a bed and he rapping, but he rapping radio songs,
some of his you know, he was rapping some of
his stuff, but mostly he was just rapping songs that.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
We all knew. And so I was like, hey, yo,
I yelled through the.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Vent, like yo, I could I could rap too, Like
when we come out, we're gonna rap. We get to
the day room, he beat on the table and when
I perform, like these little chicken shit ass excuse my language,
these little like you know, raps I wrote in this cell.
The the you know, the kids is kind of like yo,
you are, and it's it's like changing the environment. So
when I when I realized, like, oh, I could impact
(15:48):
people around me just by you know, occupying our time,
They not like annoyed trying to get away from me.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
They like spit that song.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I started to do it more and then I shared
it with my father, who is an elder in the
church and doesn't listen to hip hop, and he's just like, well,
you know, son, music brings people joy. So if you
share your gift with them and become their joy, they
will protect their joy. And so share your gift with
(16:17):
people and you'll see that.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Is that the moment you realize that music can also
be your voice?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah? I mean, I've always known music was a medium
to like express myself and use my voice. It was
gonna come in some oratory fashion for me, my dad
being a pastor, my mom being a singer. I knew
like the power of my voice. I just didn't know
the significance of it. Sometimes I still don't. But I
(16:43):
didn't know that it could be meaningful to write what's
happening in my life, to be meaningful that people would
actually value it and care about it until I started
to see the impact I was having on.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
The yard contested this footage in the doc that shows
the time when eighty and his family was still fighting
for him to get out of prison. What made you
see the value in his story before knowing he'd be
freeding it?
Speaker 8 (17:07):
M The value to me was the music itself, and
you know, I think we can we can share a
little bit. I hope folks go watch the film on Netflix.
But the whole story is leading up to the moment
where eighty eight realizes that he's incarcerated with the person
who killed his brother. Knowing that and what happened after that,
(17:29):
maybe that's the part I won't say, well, but that
there was like so much power for healing and transformation
if people heard this story to understand that, you know
what we were talking about in terms of like our
culture's obsession and reliance on retribution and punishment and revenge,
like we can choose something else, and our interpersonal relationships
(17:51):
and systemically, So that's what drew me to it. But no,
we had no idea that eighty eight would have the
opportunities that he had to come home. Like Richie said,
he had forty years to life plus life, and we
kind of structured the whole narrative arc of the story
around spiritual freedom and like internal healing and freedom, and
(18:15):
that's you know, each music video treatment kind of builds
on that healing the younger self. We didn't know that
we would have the ending that we would have in
the film. When we started and once those opportunities started
picking up, so we're following, you know, his family going
to court. What's condensed down in the film was two
and a half years of going to court and then
(18:38):
commutation from the governor. We had to follow it in
real time because it was so it was relevant to
the story. But it really was never a film about
because I think there's a lot of films about incarceration
where it's centered on does the person get to come
home and do we all get to celebrate at the
end if they come home. We wanted to resist that
because we really wanted it to feel like everyone watching
(19:01):
this how to entry point into their own healing. So
to make it about the spiritual journey was more satisfying
for me creatively and I think for all of us spiritually.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
But then, you know, we got.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
The legal reason why I got home is irrelevant m hm,
because it's not legality that's gonna get us free, for
the incarcerated and for us as a people.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I like, who you're going with this?
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Like, so.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
What what I'm saying is like, we we participate in
this system, we vote, we pay our taxes, we do
the thing, and it's not working. It's not working for nobody,
So it's it's it's working for the people who set
it up.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It's working for for you know some, but it's for
for us.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Is working for people who was designed to work for right.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
For us, it's a different story. And so it my
life to tell me it ain't gonna be that that
get me free.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
No, I agree with that.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
I've been I've been running that thought in my mind lately,
like I think that we're just past the point of
any political solutions.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
No, you know, we need freedom, freedom now.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I was gonna ask, you know, about to say something.
Speaker 7 (20:16):
I was just gonna quickly say, it's it's if you
think about it, like, it's kind of silly to even
believe that a system that was also set up by
other flawed human beings is perfect and not just by
following the rules or voting or just like following the
system that someone else set up, that that's all that's needed.
And when our problems are so great, like actually, I
(20:38):
think it calls upon us to say, okay, we can
look at how this system is an improvement from you know,
the feudal system and kings and queens and surfs, and Okay,
we've improved from there, and there is much more improvement
that needs to be done if we're going to live
in integrity with each other and the earth.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I wanted to ask, you know, it's hard not to
talk about this because you really want people to see it.
You want people to see the ins and outs of
this documentary. But I do want to ask about forgiveness.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
I was talking to Lauren earlier and she was like,
certain things I just can't forgive. Right, She was like,
I can't, Like you know, my family can and I can't.
And I think Charlamagne knows me. There's certain things I
ain't forgiven. It's like, it's just is what it is.
It's just how did you find I would say, I
don't even want to say the courage, But how did
you break down and be able to forgive somebody, especially
(21:28):
the person that you know killed your brother? How like
when did that happen? Was it immediately? Did it take
some time? Was it talk to me your dad who
was a pastor? When it?
Speaker 5 (21:40):
When I met him, I had to make a decision.
It is not a superpower.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
It is not an impossibility to to you know, all
due respect to the things you say you can't forgive.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I'm just not there yet.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
I'll get there one day. I'm just not there yet.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
But truly it's a matter of choosing it. It's a
matter of saying to me, this is how I define
forgiveness for myself in that moment.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
You kill my brother? Right, how you get that back?
How he gone? Can't gone?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Do?
Speaker 5 (22:16):
What do you owe me now?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Because that's what we're talking about in retribution and in
a retaliatory like system. It's like, now you owe me?
So this man Jay killed my brother, Now you owe me?
What do you owe me? You owe me my brother?
What's the value of my brother's life? It ain't even yours.
It ain't even your life. For real, your life is
(22:38):
value differently than my brother. So I can't just take
your life. So now I know you can't pay me back.
So what I'm gonna do?
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Be mad my whole life.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
I know you can't give it back. I know you can't.
That's first for forgiveness. I know you can't pay that debt.
So forgiveness to me is releasing within myself what I
think you owe me because you hurt me. It's just
letting go this idea that you going to somehow give
it back or you're gonna somehow realize that you owe it.
It has nothing to do with you. It has everything
(23:07):
to do with me letting go of what it is.
I think you owe me because you did me sour
right now, add to that, I did somebody file. I
did a number of somebody's file throughout my life. And
I am not like, that's not my legacy that I
want to leave. It's not something that I want to
(23:28):
be like. I want to be known for hurting people.
Nobody wants to be known for hurting people. And when
you hurt someone as seriously as I have, and you
you want to be accountable for it, then you gotta
look at all the parts of your life.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
But you were accountable. If that individual wasn't accountable.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
No, no, no, if he wasn't accountable, it don't make no difference.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Are you accountable? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Question, don't you got to give? You would have to
give the person who killed your brother the same grace
you would want the people the family that you know
you give you.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Right, that's true, and and I think that was clear
for me.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
But I do not think that that.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Is a requirement for forgiveness that you have to do
an equal harm in order to forgive somebody who has
harmed to you. Because the truth is we all commit
harm daily in some form or another. And I think
when for me to forgive, I knew I wanted it
in my life. I was I was trying to be
(24:35):
as accountable as I could be growing up in prison.
But I knew I wanted forgiveness more than I wanted anything,
because forgiveness symbolized being restored back to my community. It
symbolized me being restored back to my value that my
grandmother sees when she looked at me.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
But I know, the more and more I become accountable,
it's not Forgiveness isn't something I can ask for. It's
not even I just took everything, or I took a
lot from you and now I'm gonna ask you to
give me something else, like give me grace. That's not
something I feel willing to ask for. However, what I
can do is plant the seed in the universe. I
can plant the seed in my daily walk and in
(25:17):
the way I live, and maybe it'll come back. Maybe
it'll come to somebody who needs it.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
In my life.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
But either way, a friend of mine, Chris Wachnick, used
to always say, so is seed from your greatest need,
what you need the most, go give it to somebody.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Man.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I just want to stay here for one second of
eighty eight because it's such an interesting space. How have
you navigated the tension between accountability and self forgiveness?
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Again?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Like?
Speaker 5 (25:49):
What do I owe? Can I pay back what I owe?
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Even when I think I owe to myself or I
you know, I'm faithful in God that he will forgive me,
and that He has forgiven me and to me, that's enough.
All I have to do is be honest about where
I was at when, when, when I did whatever I did,
Where I'm at when I do whatever I do. Being
(26:16):
accountable is key, being having integrity to that accountability is
the goal. I'm not trying to be like a saint
and say like everybody should forgive, and I have the
story on how to learn how to forgive. This is
a This is like an opportunity for people to discuss
if forgiveness is necessary. Do we want a society of
(26:38):
forgiveness or do we want one of revenge? So far
we have chosen revenge. Where has it gotten us. My
dad stood up in court and looked at looked at
Jay gets sentenced, and he was like, this does nothing
for me, this does It did absolutely nothing for my
family that that young man got life in prison, nothing nothing.
(27:00):
They son was still going and they other stunts still
had forty years to life plus life. What could you
give my parents besides an opportunity for healing and reconciliation.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
You know, what is the journey been like for your
parents now that the documentary is out and they can
kind of look back and watch it. I know in
the documentary your mom talked about kind of like the
guilt that they felt when everything first happened with you
and ye felt like you were crying out and things
of that nature. Like, what is it like now for
them being able to see it in a documentary?
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I think I think they're proud that the three of
us have found a way to tell our family story
in a way that's like building something and adding value.
I guess when you go through it, it can sometimes
feel like what is all this for?
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Why am I? Why am I? Especially for my.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Parents, who, in my opinion, have done all they could
do for their children for their lives providing a good
life for us, and they suffered great loss. So I
think now when they see it in the in the film,
they're incredibly proud of us in the way that we've
been able to like share.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
This story answer that.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (28:08):
I actually just talked to eighty eight's mom yesterday and
she was encouraging me that this film is doing what
we had hoped it would do out in the world,
like it is healing people. It's allowing people to feel
seen and heard, that what they went through mattered, and
I know that that was their experience. You know, at first,
they were apprehensive and they were just kind of like
(28:29):
listening to their son be like, oh, we're making this film,
but you know, he's locked up, and me and Richie
are on the outside coming to their house and starting
to do the interview process and spend all this time
with them, and I think they were apprehensive at first,
but they came to realize, I think pretty quickly that
their story mattered, and that their story would reflect a
(28:52):
lot of family stories and help a lot of people heal.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
There's a scene in a dock when actors are portraying
james family and the family of the young men that
James killed in the courthouse.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
They're both played by the same actors. Was that intentional?
Speaker 8 (29:08):
It was intentional that that choice was really about that
family standing in for all families, no matter what side
of harm they find themselves on, because you know, eighty
eighth story is not, unfortunately unique, and that you can
experience harm and cause harm in the same turn. And
(29:28):
so to choose just one set of actors and to
place them in all of the different ways that we
place them, they actually they work as multiple families throughout
the course of the film. And that was that was
eighty eighth's idea.
Speaker 6 (29:42):
What do you hope that this film does for young
men or women that are in it right now, just
trying to survive the way that they know how best,
Like in the streets, like they trying to just day
by day all they know is survival, trying to get through.
What do you if they get a chance to watch this, like,
what do you want them to stop in their and
think at the end of the documentary?
Speaker 5 (30:06):
I think I would want them to.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
I hope I hope that they can see the process that.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
It took to heal.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
It took community, it took Richie, it took contessa. It
took my homies in prison that I was around to
hold me accountable to who I said I wanted to be.
So my advice to them as they watched this film
is to think about that and think about who in
your life is gonna hold you accountable to who you
say you want to be, Not you know, and not
(30:38):
in a way that's gonna shame you or guilt you
back into doing the right thing or being correct, but
truly gonna be like I remember you said you wanted
to do X, like how is that going? And checking
in with them, and to surround yourself with people who
will do that, who will hold you accountable to who
you say you want to be.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
That's the way. That's the way out of trying to survive.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Richie. Why do you put all your the letters lower
case in your name?
Speaker 7 (31:06):
Yeah, it's on purpose.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I did that.
Speaker 7 (31:07):
I was inspired by Belle Hooks to do that. I
think it's like English is such a ego centric kind
of language, and I liked I think Belle Hooks does
it from an anti capitalist space. Dream Hampton does it similarly.
Dream Hampton is one of our EPs and and and
a friend of mine, and I seen she do. Yeah,
(31:31):
very she's a genius. And yeah, so I was just
inspired to to model after people who I feel like
kind of mentored me. And I think it has everything
to do with what this film is about, Like we have.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
All committed harm, and.
Speaker 7 (31:47):
We have all survived harm, and when we have the
kind of like this film is not saying everybody has
to go forgive that's quote unquote the right thing to do,
as much as it's saying, like, what else is possible
besides revenge? I don't know, It's just it's just a
let it takes our ego out of being the center
(32:08):
of it.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
What else is possible other than revenge? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:12):
I think that that is very hard to explore when
you probably are dealing with a lot of your own
unheal trauma and allowing your own pain and allowing your
own hurt. Like, I think it takes a lot of
a person that's already done some work to even know
what that is.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
What is there other than revenge because that's what you
think is naturally automatically.
Speaker 7 (32:34):
That's just I think this story is so powerful because it's
just going to the to the capital letter thing. It's
it's just about humility. Like knowing that I committed harm
puts me in a position that when someone harms me,
I'm like, Okay, this doesn't feel good. But this person
is not different than me. I'm not better than them.
I'm not better than nobody. And therefore, how the kind
(32:54):
of the kind of accountability we're talking about in the
film and in our community is not who is wrong
and who needs to be punished. It's what happened and
what needs to change so that I can show up
the way that I want to show up, and when
we have, our people hold us accountable to that because
we need each other.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
That's the other thing.
Speaker 7 (33:12):
The system has convinced us. We don't need each other.
It's convinced us that as long as you have money,
you don't need nobody. That's what makes the police even
quote unquote necessary to begin with. Is this idea that
we need to be scared with guns to treat.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Each other well.
Speaker 7 (33:27):
But when we know we need each other back, when
we when we know we need each other, we don't
need to be scared into treating each other well. And
when we move from that more humble place, it's not
so like you wronged me, and now I need to
wrong you, and I'm the.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Good guy and you're the bad guy.
Speaker 7 (33:43):
It's like you wronged me as people, I feel or
rather I feel hurt by you, and I know I
have hurt other people. And what needs to change so
that we're not hurting each other?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Why it's so hard for men to admit that another
man just hurt their feelings?
Speaker 7 (33:56):
I think men are even more addicted to this, to
this system. We're like more addicted to the ego based
system because we're like privileged by it. That's why the
people who get the most out of it are the
ones who are the least likely to let go for anything.
You know, if there's a fucked up situation but you
kind of benefit from it, you're probably more likely to
(34:16):
let it keep going on. And this system, this culture
also a key element of it is defensiveness. So it's
like the more addicted to what you are, the more
defensive you are about it. And I think, man, I
don't think it's like in our nature to be like that,
but I think it's how we're raised to be in
this system for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
I also think you know when a person forgives, when
the aggressor forgives, right, like the person that can actually
do you harm. It's easy to forgive when you're in
the weaker position, like, okay, I got no choice, but
you give me a beat my ass, right. But when
you are a person that could actually do the harm
and they forgive that to me, that's a different level.
Speaker 7 (34:53):
It's like Gandhi said, we don't choose non violence because
we're scared. If my followers were scared, I would tell
them go fight. We choose non violence because we are
choosing non violence.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Check out songs contest you and Dream. Why did y'all?
Speaker 4 (35:09):
How did you connect a dream? Because I Dream is
very intentional about what she decided to do. How did
she decide she wanted to be a part of this?
Speaker 8 (35:15):
Dream is actually a mentor of Richie's. So you know,
Richie was going to be hot if.
Speaker 7 (35:19):
We called her a mentor though.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Friend.
Speaker 7 (35:23):
But she has obviously been in this business a lot
longer than I have, and I've learned a lot from her.
From Detroita, No, I'm from La. I met Dream while
I was in prison through Patrese dreaming. Patrice knew each other.
Patrise colors knew each other for a long time, and
then Patrice connected us and we started writing while we
were in prison, while she was working on the R.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Kelly stuff got you.
Speaker 7 (35:44):
Wo yeah, So she came on as an ep as
one of the first people the ep it. She had
saw Contessa's first film The Feminists on sub Block Why
which eighty eight and I are in as well. She
was talking about kind of following our our work doing
integrity work with other men in the and she was
a fan of that film. So when I had approached
her and be like, do you want to support this film.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
She was all for it.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
I got two more questions. Eighty h you kept your
original prison recorded vocals.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
Right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah? Why?
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I mean that was the voice I used. We took
great risk, we risked our freedom to make those recordings,
and that was the album Richie and I wanted to release,
so we thought it was important.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You probably couldn't recreate that rowness.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, definitely you can't.
You can't recreate it. It was a moment in time
that was like, you know, really spiritual, really really a
blessed experience for me, one of the few blessed experiences.
And while I was inside to be able to record
that music with Richie, and it just shows.
Speaker 7 (36:48):
How incarcerated people are worthwhile us in our early twenties
in prison making music, like the fact that that music
is now on Netflix right and on streamers and on
like vinyl and being her all over the world. I'd
be looking at our stats on the distributor platform and
seeing people are listening to this music in Brazil and
we made it in prison. It's so affirming to me,
(37:08):
to us, but also to other people who are in
prison right now, Like, you can be whoever you want
to be. You don't have to be who they tell
you got to be, whether that they be the prison
system or the streets. You could be who you want
to be, not who they tell you.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
And contested what do you want people to take away
from this store.
Speaker 8 (37:26):
What Richie said? I mean, I saw like I saw
my brothers when I came into the prison. And I
also grew up in church like eighty eight, and so
we really connected on like the music, you know, growing
up in the church, listening to gospel music, having that
type of family, and that's why I connected so deeply
(37:46):
to the music because it's it's also so it's hip hop,
but it's so spiritual and I want people to know
that healing is possible.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And that.
Speaker 8 (38:00):
It can come in different forms. And our film, I
think is an offering in that regard. Like there's multiple lanes,
there's multiple portals, there's multiple entry points into people finding
their healing and and that's why I made the film.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
As a label reached out until they wanted to sign
you or not as yet a few couple you're thinking
about signing on independent.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
I like being independent right now. It's mine.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
To do what you want to do, how you want
to do it, when you want.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
Yeah, but you know I take a call.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Well, there you have it.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Songs from the whole of Documentary Net on Netflix right now.
Definitely check it out. And we appreciate you guys for
James JJ eighty, Jacob's Contested Gales and Richie small R receiving.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Every day breakfast Club you don't finish for y'all done,
Every day A waiting up the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You're fineish for y'all dump morning.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Everybody is DJ Envy, just hilarious, charlamage.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
God.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
We are the Breakfast Club, long the Roses. Here today
we got some special guest in the building from the
documentary on Netflix, Songs from the Whole. We have James
Jacobs JJ eighty eight. We have Contessa Gales and Richie Recida. Welcome,
how you guys feeling.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's on Netflix right now, by the way, Yes.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
How y'all feeling?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Feeling gravy to be here now.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
For people that haven't seen the documentary, break down what
the documentary is about.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, it's a documentary visual album. We tell the story
of my life. When I was fifteen, I was incarcerated
for a second degree murder and during that time I
spent eighteen years in prison, and during that time I
wrote an album. I met him, We produced and recorded
that album in prison, and I wrote the visuals. We
met Contesta and it's good of his film.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Essentially. Also, I want to ask you something.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
You know, fifteen and you committed a crime it was murder,
and then three days later your brother was killed. But
how did those two events so close together, I guess
shape your sense of identity and ultimately give you purpose.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
I guess, oh yeah, Well, at first it took me
down like a really dark like mental place, and after
coming through like you know, suicidal ideations, and just at
first I just felt like, at first I just felt
kind of purposeless. I took a life which at fifteen
(01:36):
it's kind of hard to hold and really recognize the
gravity of it. But by the time I was eighteen
and in prison, I just kind of felt worthless and
without hope. And losing my brother within that span was
kind of like he was kind of who I was
emulating and admiring growing up.
Speaker 5 (01:56):
So it really devastated me.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
And however, like through music is like it kind of
gave me a place to talk about it and talk
about what me and the homies was just experiencing what
me and my family went through, and so through I
guess through music is where I kind of found purpose
in my story and where I could use it.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
I want to talk about when you was fifteen, man,
because you said something that I often feel like with
these kids, and all all of us were kids at
once some point, you make a terrible choice a temporary
decision at leads. I mean if temporary feeling leads to
a permanent decision. You know, do you really understand the
consequences of your actions at that time?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I mean not in the way that I do now
when you're fifteen, you know. I mean, I think when
I was a kid, I knew if you shoot.
Speaker 5 (02:49):
Someone, they could die.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Like I know that I've seen people die, I've seen
violence in my community, but I don't think I knew
what it meant for real, like the finality of it
at fifteen. I don't think I knew truly at fifteen
the impact it was having not only on this person
but their family.
Speaker 5 (03:12):
When there's people.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
That I've like got back in touch with since I
got home, who were you know, there that night and
had to witness that, and that night altered their life.
And I didn't learn that until I was in my thirties.
So you don't at fifteen. You don't understand the gravity
of it, but you do understand that it is serious.
And the older I got, the more mature I became,
(03:35):
the more I understood how serious it is, which is
why we made this film.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
For real, there you were charged as an adult, not
a child. Why was that.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Because California is racist to put it simple.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yes, at fifteen serving eighteen years, it just seems like
in any other state you would have been charged as
a child and giving a second chance, another opportunity on.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
Nah, They doing it in other states too, They charged,
They charged kids as adults because they want to take
away futures and they have a belief in this like
punishment system. We live in a culture where revenge is normal.
We value it as a culture. Revenge is something that
(04:21):
we explore. Me being a perpetrator of murder and having
my brother murdered, it's something that I had to face
for myself, you know. So the reason why they charge
us as adults when we're kids is because they believe
in revenge. They believe in retribution, They believe in eye
for an eye.
Speaker 6 (04:40):
At fifteen years old, when you were sending it in
front of the judge, not really understanding what's happening in
your sentence. In the doc, you talk about looking over
to your attorney and being like, so when am I
going home?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (04:49):
Right, at that moment, as a kid, what did you
need outside of just being locked away behind bars? Like
what could they have given you that would have actually,
like in that moment, help to reform.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Do you mean, like after I've committed murder, Like what
to offer a kid?
Speaker 6 (05:05):
Yeah? Like, what what should be the you know, the
rehabilitation of a person that is fifteen years old, that
murders a person.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
I don't know what it should be. I can tell
you what I did. What helped me was like just
having safe places to talk about it. So I didn't
to talk about what I had done. I don't think
I needed to necessarily be locked away once I committed murder.
Speaker 5 (05:31):
I knew it was foul. I felt the seriousness of it.
It wasn't like I was.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
I wasn't celebrated by my homies, So I knew that
this was not the move to make. But I needed
to understand why, and I didn't get that opportunity in court.
They don't give you an opportunity to understand why you
are in this moment. How serious it is that that
you have taken a life and there's no plan to
(06:00):
help you mature through it and process it.
Speaker 6 (06:03):
You know, you said you weren't celebrated. You also talk
a lot about how you thought, like you know, this
is kind of like a song like we talked about it.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
In the songs the song is over.
Speaker 6 (06:12):
Yeah, so you had an idea of what you thought
committing a crime would be like, and then you actually
found yourself committing Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
I mean that's true for a lot of my homies.
We listen to music and this is no, this is
no like condemnation on like hip hop and the music
we grow up on. I think it's just true that
when I listen to music as a kid, when I
watch films as a kid, and I saw violence, it
didn't seem you know, the film cuts off and then
(06:42):
I see the nigga on the red carpet. Excuse me,
I see you on the red carpet, like it's regular.
You don't really understand that that person in that story
didn't come back in real life.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
And so as a kid, I thought, you know, in two.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Thousand and three, two thousand and four, I was listening
to get Richard, I trying, and like that was the
epitome of being against And so once I realized after
you know, as a kid, it's not it ain't you know,
just a song. It's like when you go back to
your homies, they gonna look at you and they gonna
be scared of They gonna look at you and they
(07:19):
gonna have real fear, Like what did you just do?
Speaker 5 (07:21):
The homies ask me what you just do?
Speaker 7 (07:23):
Fool?
Speaker 5 (07:24):
What did you do? Like, why did you do that?
The homie?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Everybody I know who had a murder in prison, like
they none of them got dapped up when they.
Speaker 5 (07:34):
Homies found out.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Everybody got what they might talk about it and and
even like they tell they tell war stories, sure, but
it's like not not after it happened. I don't know
nobody who got dapped up directly after, like, oh we
did that, Let's go. Them niggas is in that car, quiet, smoking,
(07:56):
drinking them niggas is seriously quiet. It ain't no game,
Like that's That's what I came to realize that, you know,
you take a life.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
It ain't it ain't.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
It ain't fun, it's not it's not honorable to me,
especially in the context of just regular street like.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Ship contesting and Richie ill y'all can make with James.
The album tell the story.
Speaker 8 (08:21):
So what what Adya didn't share was that he wrote
the music that's in the film in solitary confinement after
he got out of solitary. He transferred to the prison
where Richie was at and that's how they met. He
could talk about how they collaborated more on the music.
But I met the both of them when I was
filming a documentary for CNN. I used to work at CNN,
(08:43):
and the last project I did for them was a
feature called the Feminists on Cell Black Wife, and it
was about a group that Richie had co founded in
prison and was leading for his fellow incarcerated men with
they're reading feminist literature like Belle Hooks and you know,
learning about patriarchy and how it shows up in their
lives and unlearning it. So Richie was leading that group
(09:05):
and eighty eight was a participant and a co facilitator
of that group. And that was the first time that
I heard a little bit of eighty eight story. And
it was the last day of filming that documentary had
nothing to do with the group, but the two of
them were in the prison gym and it was Richie's
last day at the prison. He was about to be
transferred to finish his sentence somewhere else, and they had
(09:27):
the prison rental keyboard, and Richie had the keyboard on
a trash Can and eighty eight was singing and rapping
some of those songs that he wrote in solitary, and
there was a group of the guys gathered around and
like they knew all the lyrics, so you could tell
like this is you know, something that they've been sharing.
And I was just struck by, like how powerful the
music was, how much storytelling there was in eighty eight lyrics,
(09:51):
But I didn't know the context of you know, his
story and the relationship between that and the music and
how he came to the whole and writing that music
in the whole. Fast forward a year after that film
came out, they both approached me about, you know, would
you want to work on a visual album using eighty
eight's music? You know you heard some of it. I
was like, some me what you got, and I once
(10:15):
I like listen to the recordings and really like, over
the course of our development, got to know more about
how eighty eight came to the whole and then writing
the music there, and then what they were able to
do inside producing a whole album. I knew that we
had something really special that could really be a testimony,
like eighty eight story is a testimony, and the music
(10:36):
is so impactful in being able to like hold the
narrative and tell his story. So we started collaborating from
there and really like evolved our relationship from this like
kind of more traditional space of like journalistic. I was
the filmmaker, they were the film participants to like co
collaborators on this project, and it was a true collaboration,
like eighty eight was onside the whole time. We were
(10:59):
eight months into the edit when he was released, and
we managed to figure out how to collaborate across the
prison walls through phone calls, through letters, you know, fifteen
minute phone calls at a time. That's how we met.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I got a two paul question for you, eighty eight.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
We're gonna ask Richie how he met, because I know
you asked both from Richie and.
Speaker 8 (11:16):
Yeah, che.
Speaker 7 (11:20):
I had met eighty eight while I was in prison.
I had just released an album from prison, so everybody
at the prison kind of knew me as a producer.
So in eighty eight got to the yard, the people
who knew him from other prisons were like, you got
to meet eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You got to meet eighty eight, And you know, I.
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Wasn't a lot of everybody in prison think they can
rap just like everybody on the streets.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
I was.
Speaker 7 (11:44):
I wasn't like in a rush to meet him necessarily.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
I was like, okay, But.
Speaker 7 (11:51):
When I did meet him. We have a homie named
Taleb who was trying to put together a poetry book.
So he was bringing all these artists together. And we
had met in the in the law library and I
heard him rap and sing, and I was blown away. Honestly,
he could both rap and sing very well, which a
lot of people can't do. Usually they do one well
(12:13):
and then the other they kind of do for fun.
And the story he was telling and the position he
had on it, it's not an easy thing to make
music that doesn't necessarily glorify or judge the streets. And
I was like, Yo, let's let's let's make this album.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
You had only equipment in jail. You were able to
have the equipment in jail.
Speaker 7 (12:35):
Nah, we broke the rules. The way that we made
the album was against the rules. Well, yell out now,
but I can't tell you because it's people in who
still make music that way. But yeah, the way we
made this album in prison was completely against the rules.
The prison was against it in every way. They ran
up in my cell. They threatened to send me to
(12:55):
the hole for making music, and.
Speaker 5 (12:58):
But it was like they denied me at for making music. Really,
I was able to be.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
A part of a collaboration that Richie was EPN and
it featured incarcerated artists and free artists. And when I
got to board, they named that It's like a reason
why I was in danger to society is that you
make music.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Wow.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
Yeah, it's important to point out he had life. He
wasn't sentenced to eighteen years. He was sentenced to forty
years to double life. So you know, we didn't know
when eighty eight was coming home. We knew spiritually he
was coming home, but we didn't know when he was
coming home. So when we finished the album, we were like,
you know, typically you finish, you do an album, then
you tore it, and we didn't have that opportunity with him.
So we're like, let's do a visual album, and that's
(13:43):
kind of how the idea began. Then we approached contestant.
She built it out to an actual film.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
One other question, is it true that you can't profit
off of a crime that was done?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Is that true?
Speaker 7 (13:53):
Yeah, So in California, the way that the law is
written is that basically you can't take if you're incarcerated
in California, you can't talk about your crime in a
way that makes you money. So you can't write a
book about it and make money. You can't make music
about it or a film or anything and make money.
All of that typically has to go to the people
who are impacted by about the crime. And eighty eight's
(14:15):
case is unique in that he didn't. The album in
the film is not about the fact that he harmed somebody,
but rather that he had committed harm and he had
been harmed, that his brother was murdered. So, but we
also didn't release it until you got out.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
During your time in solitary of five in eighty eight,
like you turned music into a lifeline, right, Like what
was the moment you realized music was an escape for you?
And I know that probably what kept you saying in
the whole.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Yeah, as soon as I got in and when I
as soon as I got locked up, I knew I
grew up with music. I grew up in a church,
I grew up singing, I grew up rapping. I started
like writing in about the seventh grade. So when I
got locked up, you don't know what the hell to do.
When you're a kid just in a box kind of
you're just sitting there thinking, you're listening different sounds, and
(15:05):
suddenly next to me, the cell next to me is
the homie we calling Johnny West, Jonathan Marquez. He beating
on a bed and he rapping, but he rapping radio songs,
some of his you know, he was rapping some of
his stuff, but mostly he was just rapping songs that.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
We all knew. And so I was like, hey, yo,
I yelled through the.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Vent, like yo, I could I could rap too, Like
when we come out, we're gonna rap. We get to
the day room, he beat on the table and when
I perform, like these little chicken shit ass excuse my language,
these little like you know, raps I wrote in this cell.
The the you know, the kids is kind of like yo,
you are, and it's it's like changing the environment. So
when I when I realized, like, oh, I could impact
(15:48):
people around me just by you know, occupying our time,
They not like annoyed trying to get away from me.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
They like spit that song.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I started to do it more and then I shared
it with my father, who is an elder in the
church and doesn't listen to hip hop, and he's just like, well,
you know, son, music brings people joy. So if you
share your gift with them and become their joy, they
will protect their joy. And so share your gift with
(16:17):
people and you'll see that.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Is that the moment you realize that music can also
be your voice?
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah? I mean, I've always known music was a medium
to like express myself and use my voice. It was
gonna come in some oratory fashion for me, my dad
being a pastor, my mom being a singer. I knew
like the power of my voice. I just didn't know
the significance of it. Sometimes I still don't. But I
(16:43):
didn't know that it could be meaningful to write what's
happening in my life, to be meaningful that people would
actually value it and care about it until I started
to see the impact I was having on.
Speaker 4 (16:55):
The yard contested this footage in the doc that shows
the time when eighty and his family was still fighting
for him to get out of prison. What made you
see the value in his story before knowing he'd be
freeding it?
Speaker 8 (17:07):
M The value to me was the music itself, and
you know, I think we can we can share a
little bit. I hope folks go watch the film on Netflix.
But the whole story is leading up to the moment
where eighty eight realizes that he's incarcerated with the person
who killed his brother. Knowing that and what happened after that,
(17:29):
maybe that's the part I won't say, well, but that
there was like so much power for healing and transformation
if people heard this story to understand that, you know
what we were talking about in terms of like our
culture's obsession and reliance on retribution and punishment and revenge,
like we can choose something else, and our interpersonal relationships
(17:51):
and systemically, So that's what drew me to it. But no,
we had no idea that eighty eight would have the
opportunities that he had to come home. Like Richie said,
he had forty years to life plus life, and we
kind of structured the whole narrative arc of the story
around spiritual freedom and like internal healing and freedom, and
(18:15):
that's you know, each music video treatment kind of builds
on that healing the younger self. We didn't know that
we would have the ending that we would have in
the film. When we started and once those opportunities started
picking up, so we're following, you know, his family going
to court. What's condensed down in the film was two
and a half years of going to court and then
(18:38):
commutation from the governor. We had to follow it in
real time because it was so it was relevant to
the story. But it really was never a film about
because I think there's a lot of films about incarceration
where it's centered on does the person get to come
home and do we all get to celebrate at the
end if they come home. We wanted to resist that
because we really wanted it to feel like everyone watching
(19:01):
this how to entry point into their own healing. So
to make it about the spiritual journey was more satisfying
for me creatively and I think for all of us spiritually.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
But then, you know, we got.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
The legal reason why I got home is irrelevant m hm,
because it's not legality that's gonna get us free, for
the incarcerated and for us as a people.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I like, who you're going with this?
Speaker 5 (19:31):
Like, so.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
What what I'm saying is like, we we participate in
this system, we vote, we pay our taxes, we do
the thing, and it's not working. It's not working for nobody,
So it's it's it's working for the people who set
it up.
Speaker 5 (19:48):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It's working for for you know some, but it's for
for us.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Is working for people who was designed to work for right.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
For us, it's a different story. And so it my
life to tell me it ain't gonna be that that
get me free.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
No, I agree with that.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
I've been I've been running that thought in my mind lately,
like I think that we're just past the point of
any political solutions.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
No, you know, we need freedom, freedom now.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I was gonna ask, you know, about to say something.
Speaker 7 (20:16):
I was just gonna quickly say, it's it's if you
think about it, like, it's kind of silly to even
believe that a system that was also set up by
other flawed human beings is perfect and not just by
following the rules or voting or just like following the
system that someone else set up, that that's all that's needed.
And when our problems are so great, like actually, I
(20:38):
think it calls upon us to say, okay, we can
look at how this system is an improvement from you know,
the feudal system and kings and queens and surfs, and Okay,
we've improved from there, and there is much more improvement
that needs to be done if we're going to live
in integrity with each other and the earth.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I wanted to ask, you know, it's hard not to
talk about this because you really want people to see it.
You want people to see the ins and outs of
this documentary. But I do want to ask about forgiveness.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
I was talking to Lauren earlier and she was like,
certain things I just can't forgive. Right, She was like,
I can't, Like you know, my family can and I can't.
And I think Charlamagne knows me. There's certain things I
ain't forgiven. It's like, it's just is what it is.
It's just how did you find I would say, I
don't even want to say the courage, But how did
you break down and be able to forgive somebody, especially
(21:28):
the person that you know killed your brother? How like
when did that happen? Was it immediately? Did it take
some time? Was it talk to me your dad who
was a pastor? When it?
Speaker 5 (21:40):
When I met him, I had to make a decision.
It is not a superpower.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
It is not an impossibility to to you know, all
due respect to the things you say you can't forgive.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
I'm just not there yet.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
I'll get there one day. I'm just not there yet.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
But truly it's a matter of choosing it. It's a
matter of saying to me, this is how I define
forgiveness for myself in that moment.
Speaker 5 (22:05):
You kill my brother? Right, how you get that back?
How he gone? Can't gone?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Do?
Speaker 5 (22:16):
What do you owe me now?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Because that's what we're talking about in retribution and in
a retaliatory like system. It's like, now you owe me?
So this man Jay killed my brother, Now you owe me?
What do you owe me? You owe me my brother?
What's the value of my brother's life? It ain't even yours.
It ain't even your life. For real, your life is
(22:38):
value differently than my brother. So I can't just take
your life. So now I know you can't pay me back.
So what I'm gonna do?
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Be mad my whole life.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
I know you can't give it back. I know you can't.
That's first for forgiveness. I know you can't pay that debt.
So forgiveness to me is releasing within myself what I
think you owe me because you hurt me. It's just
letting go this idea that you going to somehow give
it back or you're gonna somehow realize that you owe it.
It has nothing to do with you. It has everything
(23:07):
to do with me letting go of what it is.
I think you owe me because you did me sour
right now, add to that, I did somebody file. I
did a number of somebody's file throughout my life. And
I am not like, that's not my legacy that I
want to leave. It's not something that I want to
(23:28):
be like. I want to be known for hurting people.
Nobody wants to be known for hurting people. And when
you hurt someone as seriously as I have, and you
you want to be accountable for it, then you gotta
look at all the parts of your life.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
But you were accountable. If that individual wasn't accountable.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
No, no, no, if he wasn't accountable, it don't make no difference.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Are you accountable? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:55):
Question, don't you got to give? You would have to
give the person who killed your brother the same grace
you would want the people the family that you know
you give you.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Right, that's true, and and I think that was clear
for me.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
But I do not think that that.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Is a requirement for forgiveness that you have to do
an equal harm in order to forgive somebody who has
harmed to you. Because the truth is we all commit
harm daily in some form or another. And I think
when for me to forgive, I knew I wanted it
in my life. I was I was trying to be
(24:35):
as accountable as I could be growing up in prison.
But I knew I wanted forgiveness more than I wanted anything,
because forgiveness symbolized being restored back to my community. It
symbolized me being restored back to my value that my
grandmother sees when she looked at me.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
But I know, the more and more I become accountable,
it's not Forgiveness isn't something I can ask for. It's
not even I just took everything, or I took a
lot from you and now I'm gonna ask you to
give me something else, like give me grace. That's not
something I feel willing to ask for. However, what I
can do is plant the seed in the universe. I
can plant the seed in my daily walk and in
(25:17):
the way I live, and maybe it'll come back. Maybe
it'll come to somebody who needs it.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
In my life.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
But either way, a friend of mine, Chris Wachnick, used
to always say, so is seed from your greatest need,
what you need the most, go give it to somebody.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Man.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
I just want to stay here for one second of
eighty eight because it's such an interesting space. How have
you navigated the tension between accountability and self forgiveness?
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Again?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Like?
Speaker 5 (25:49):
What do I owe? Can I pay back what I owe?
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Even when I think I owe to myself or I
you know, I'm faithful in God that he will forgive me,
and that He has forgiven me and to me, that's enough.
All I have to do is be honest about where
I was at when, when, when I did whatever I did,
Where I'm at when I do whatever I do. Being
(26:16):
accountable is key, being having integrity to that accountability is
the goal. I'm not trying to be like a saint
and say like everybody should forgive, and I have the
story on how to learn how to forgive. This is
a This is like an opportunity for people to discuss
if forgiveness is necessary. Do we want a society of
(26:38):
forgiveness or do we want one of revenge? So far
we have chosen revenge. Where has it gotten us. My
dad stood up in court and looked at looked at
Jay gets sentenced, and he was like, this does nothing
for me, this does It did absolutely nothing for my
family that that young man got life in prison, nothing nothing.
(27:00):
They son was still going and they other stunts still
had forty years to life plus life. What could you
give my parents besides an opportunity for healing and reconciliation.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
You know, what is the journey been like for your
parents now that the documentary is out and they can
kind of look back and watch it. I know in
the documentary your mom talked about kind of like the
guilt that they felt when everything first happened with you
and ye felt like you were crying out and things
of that nature. Like, what is it like now for
them being able to see it in a documentary?
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I think I think they're proud that the three of
us have found a way to tell our family story
in a way that's like building something and adding value.
I guess when you go through it, it can sometimes
feel like what is all this for?
Speaker 5 (27:45):
Why am I? Why am I? Especially for my.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Parents, who, in my opinion, have done all they could
do for their children for their lives providing a good
life for us, and they suffered great loss. So I
think now when they see it in the in the film,
they're incredibly proud of us in the way that we've
been able to like share.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
This story answer that.
Speaker 7 (28:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (28:08):
I actually just talked to eighty eight's mom yesterday and
she was encouraging me that this film is doing what
we had hoped it would do out in the world,
like it is healing people. It's allowing people to feel
seen and heard, that what they went through mattered, and
I know that that was their experience. You know, at first,
they were apprehensive and they were just kind of like
(28:29):
listening to their son be like, oh, we're making this film,
but you know, he's locked up, and me and Richie
are on the outside coming to their house and starting
to do the interview process and spend all this time
with them, and I think they were apprehensive at first,
but they came to realize, I think pretty quickly that
their story mattered, and that their story would reflect a
(28:52):
lot of family stories and help a lot of people heal.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
There's a scene in a dock when actors are portraying
james family and the family of the young men that
James killed in the courthouse.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
They're both played by the same actors. Was that intentional?
Speaker 8 (29:08):
It was intentional that that choice was really about that
family standing in for all families, no matter what side
of harm they find themselves on, because you know, eighty
eighth story is not, unfortunately unique, and that you can
experience harm and cause harm in the same turn. And
(29:28):
so to choose just one set of actors and to
place them in all of the different ways that we
place them, they actually they work as multiple families throughout
the course of the film. And that was that was
eighty eighth's idea.
Speaker 6 (29:42):
What do you hope that this film does for young
men or women that are in it right now, just
trying to survive the way that they know how best,
Like in the streets, like they trying to just day
by day all they know is survival, trying to get through.
What do you if they get a chance to watch this, like,
what do you want them to stop in their and
think at the end of the documentary?
Speaker 5 (30:06):
I think I would want them to.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
I hope I hope that they can see the process that.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
It took to heal.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
It took community, it took Richie, it took contessa. It
took my homies in prison that I was around to
hold me accountable to who I said I wanted to be.
So my advice to them as they watched this film
is to think about that and think about who in
your life is gonna hold you accountable to who you
say you want to be, Not you know, and not
(30:38):
in a way that's gonna shame you or guilt you
back into doing the right thing or being correct, but
truly gonna be like I remember you said you wanted
to do X, like how is that going? And checking
in with them, and to surround yourself with people who
will do that, who will hold you accountable to who
you say you want to be.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
That's the way. That's the way out of trying to survive.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Richie. Why do you put all your the letters lower
case in your name?
Speaker 7 (31:06):
Yeah, it's on purpose.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
I did that.
Speaker 7 (31:07):
I was inspired by Belle Hooks to do that. I
think it's like English is such a ego centric kind
of language, and I liked I think Belle Hooks does
it from an anti capitalist space. Dream Hampton does it similarly.
Dream Hampton is one of our EPs and and and
a friend of mine, and I seen she do. Yeah,
(31:31):
very she's a genius. And yeah, so I was just
inspired to to model after people who I feel like
kind of mentored me. And I think it has everything
to do with what this film is about, Like we have.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
All committed harm, and.
Speaker 7 (31:47):
We have all survived harm, and when we have the
kind of like this film is not saying everybody has
to go forgive that's quote unquote the right thing to do,
as much as it's saying, like, what else is possible
besides revenge? I don't know, It's just it's just a
let it takes our ego out of being the center
(32:08):
of it.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
What else is possible other than revenge? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (32:12):
I think that that is very hard to explore when
you probably are dealing with a lot of your own
unheal trauma and allowing your own pain and allowing your
own hurt. Like, I think it takes a lot of
a person that's already done some work to even know
what that is.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
What is there other than revenge because that's what you
think is naturally automatically.
Speaker 7 (32:34):
That's just I think this story is so powerful because it's
just going to the to the capital letter thing. It's
it's just about humility. Like knowing that I committed harm
puts me in a position that when someone harms me,
I'm like, Okay, this doesn't feel good. But this person
is not different than me. I'm not better than them.
I'm not better than nobody. And therefore, how the kind
(32:54):
of the kind of accountability we're talking about in the
film and in our community is not who is wrong
and who needs to be punished. It's what happened and
what needs to change so that I can show up
the way that I want to show up, and when
we have, our people hold us accountable to that because
we need each other.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
That's the other thing.
Speaker 7 (33:12):
The system has convinced us. We don't need each other.
It's convinced us that as long as you have money,
you don't need nobody. That's what makes the police even
quote unquote necessary to begin with. Is this idea that
we need to be scared with guns to treat.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Each other well.
Speaker 7 (33:27):
But when we know we need each other back, when
we when we know we need each other, we don't
need to be scared into treating each other well. And
when we move from that more humble place, it's not
so like you wronged me, and now I need to
wrong you, and I'm the.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Good guy and you're the bad guy.
Speaker 7 (33:43):
It's like you wronged me as people, I feel or
rather I feel hurt by you, and I know I
have hurt other people. And what needs to change so
that we're not hurting each other?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Why it's so hard for men to admit that another
man just hurt their feelings?
Speaker 7 (33:56):
I think men are even more addicted to this, to
this system. We're like more addicted to the ego based
system because we're like privileged by it. That's why the
people who get the most out of it are the
ones who are the least likely to let go for anything.
You know, if there's a fucked up situation but you
kind of benefit from it, you're probably more likely to
(34:16):
let it keep going on. And this system, this culture
also a key element of it is defensiveness. So it's
like the more addicted to what you are, the more
defensive you are about it. And I think, man, I
don't think it's like in our nature to be like that,
but I think it's how we're raised to be in
this system for sure.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
I also think you know when a person forgives, when
the aggressor forgives, right, like the person that can actually
do you harm. It's easy to forgive when you're in
the weaker position, like, okay, I got no choice, but
you give me a beat my ass, right. But when
you are a person that could actually do the harm
and they forgive that to me, that's a different level.
Speaker 7 (34:53):
It's like Gandhi said, we don't choose non violence because
we're scared. If my followers were scared, I would tell
them go fight. We choose non violence because we are
choosing non violence.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Check out songs contest you and Dream. Why did y'all?
Speaker 4 (35:09):
How did you connect a dream? Because I Dream is
very intentional about what she decided to do. How did
she decide she wanted to be a part of this?
Speaker 8 (35:15):
Dream is actually a mentor of Richie's. So you know,
Richie was going to be hot if.
Speaker 7 (35:19):
We called her a mentor though.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Friend.
Speaker 7 (35:23):
But she has obviously been in this business a lot
longer than I have, and I've learned a lot from her.
From Detroita, No, I'm from La. I met Dream while
I was in prison through Patrese dreaming. Patrice knew each other.
Patrise colors knew each other for a long time, and
then Patrice connected us and we started writing while we
were in prison, while she was working on the R.
Speaker 2 (35:42):
Kelly stuff got you.
Speaker 7 (35:44):
Wo yeah, So she came on as an ep as
one of the first people the ep it. She had
saw Contessa's first film The Feminists on sub Block Why
which eighty eight and I are in as well. She
was talking about kind of following our our work doing
integrity work with other men in the and she was
a fan of that film. So when I had approached
her and be like, do you want to support this film.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
She was all for it.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
I got two more questions. Eighty h you kept your
original prison recorded vocals.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
Right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah? Why?
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I mean that was the voice I used. We took
great risk, we risked our freedom to make those recordings,
and that was the album Richie and I wanted to release,
so we thought it was important.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
You probably couldn't recreate that rowness.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Yeah no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, definitely you can't.
You can't recreate it. It was a moment in time
that was like, you know, really spiritual, really really a
blessed experience for me, one of the few blessed experiences.
And while I was inside to be able to record
that music with Richie, and it just shows.
Speaker 7 (36:48):
How incarcerated people are worthwhile us in our early twenties
in prison making music, like the fact that that music
is now on Netflix right and on streamers and on
like vinyl and being her all over the world. I'd
be looking at our stats on the distributor platform and
seeing people are listening to this music in Brazil and
we made it in prison. It's so affirming to me,
(37:08):
to us, but also to other people who are in
prison right now, Like, you can be whoever you want
to be. You don't have to be who they tell
you got to be, whether that they be the prison
system or the streets. You could be who you want
to be, not who they tell you.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
And contested what do you want people to take away
from this store.
Speaker 8 (37:26):
What Richie said? I mean, I saw like I saw
my brothers when I came into the prison. And I
also grew up in church like eighty eight, and so
we really connected on like the music, you know, growing
up in the church, listening to gospel music, having that
type of family, and that's why I connected so deeply
(37:46):
to the music because it's it's also so it's hip hop,
but it's so spiritual and I want people to know
that healing is possible.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
And that.
Speaker 8 (38:00):
It can come in different forms. And our film, I
think is an offering in that regard. Like there's multiple lanes,
there's multiple portals, there's multiple entry points into people finding
their healing and and that's why I made the film.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
As a label reached out until they wanted to sign
you or not as yet a few couple you're thinking
about signing on independent.
Speaker 5 (38:22):
I like being independent right now. It's mine.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
To do what you want to do, how you want
to do it, when you want.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
Yeah, but you know I take a call.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Well, there you have it.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Songs from the whole of Documentary Net on Netflix right now.
Definitely check it out. And we appreciate you guys for
James JJ eighty, Jacob's Contested Gales and Richie small R receiving.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Every day breakfast Club you don't finish for y'all done,
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