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“A new hip-hop album takes us inside the Florida prison system – featuring fifteen artists in correctional facilities across the state. …
“For Julius Smith, aka Prince Jooveh, making a rap demo while incarcerated all hinged on a phone call.
“‘I would have to get up very early, pretty much as soon as the collect calls were turned on, because, you know, the hustle and bustle around a prison dormitory can get pretty loud.’
“Jooveh was serving a 20-year sentence at Florida State Prison. In a narrow hallway there, he would grab a pay phone in each hand and dial his musical collaborators.
“‘So I would listen in one phone, and I would rap my lyrics in the other phone.’
“Calls were limited to 30 minutes. … So for Jooveh, it took more than one call. But through a team of producers and engineers in a faraway studio, that low-quality landline audio became a polished track called ‘Hands Up.’ …
“Prince Jooveh is one of 15 artists featured on Bending The Bars. The album is produced by the Community Hotline for Incarcerated People, or CHIP. That’s a South Florida organization that advocates for abolishing prisons. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, CHIP set up a hotline to support incarcerated people in the area and learn more about the conditions and their facilities. It evolved into something unexpected.”
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