The Broadside: What It Takes To Make Music in Prison

A special presentation featuring a recent podcast episode of The Broadside from public radio WUNC In today’s episode of The Broadside, co-host and producer Charlie Shelton-Ormond looks at the influential, exploitative and evolving world of music in Southern prisons. You’ll hear from a historian and incarcerated musicians, one of which is rapper Deon Thomas. As a person incarcerated in the state of Virginia, Deon doesn’t have access to a recording studio. Instead, he’s part of a small group of artists who record songs through phone calls and distribute them through a prison-only digital music service. It's a modern twist on a long and complicated tradition