In 2008, South African news outlet News24 described Cameroon’s Douala prison as “hell on earth.” Since 2018, Jail Time Records—a not-for-profit music label that works with inmates to release music and visuals from within the prison’s walls—has strived to change things, affording inmates a sense of hope, purpose and play. Co-founders Steve Happi and Dione Roach tell writer Natty Kasambala how the project came about and what their dreams are for its future, and reflect on the power music can have—how it can be a tool of unity and resistance in the face of adversity.
Jail Time Records could only have happened exactly when it did. Or as music producer, ex-prisoner and co-founder Steve Happi puts it, “it was God’s plan.” But just because the timing was divine doesn’t mean the road was easy. In fact, it all aligned when, after a familial dispute, Happi found himself falsely accused and awaiting trial alongside his brothers in Cameroon’s toughest prison. Where many would have resigned to hopelessness, however, he busied himself with amorphous audio projects—connecting with fellow inmates, archiving their stories, creating acapella music around the lock-up. By the time he heard tales of an Italian volunteer organizing a music studio within the prison, it already felt fated. “Dione was the missing piece of the puzzle,” he says, “and when she came into our life, everything changed.”
For artist and co-founder Dione Roach, the seed of Jail Time Records matured over time rather than arriving as a fully-formed concept. In Douala on a year-long volunteer programme, she’d been harnessing creativity as a tool within the New Bell prison, leading dance and painting classes. At the end of a session, when a group of rappers got hold of the mic and began to freestyle, she was struck by the power of their performance. “Music was already there,” she says. “Something that was so present and you didn’t have to teach it. It was already coming out of people; they just needed a channel.”
Soon after, she started attending rehearsals in the prison’s Death Sentence Quarter, and the idea for a project was sparked—first as an album and then as something more permanent. From then, after proposing it to her organization and prison authorities, everything moved pretty quickly. “There was no resistance actually, it was all really smooth,” she says, laughing.
Six years on, cemented as an audiovisual creative duo, Jail Time Records has changed the very nature of the institution once dubbed “hell on earth” by South African news outlet News24—affording inmates a sense of hope, purpose and play within a distinctly harsh environment. Running with an open door policy, the non-profit music label has empowered New Bell prisoners both creatively and practically through their platform.
The label releases captivating (made in prison) music and visuals that capture the raw, frenetic energy within the four walls and transform it into art: “We welcome everyone to the studio, that’s our mindset,” Happi says. “The studio is a therapeutic place...it’s a whole movement now. It feeds their mind. It’s where people can go and release the energy they have; everything can be expressed.” That energy has now become Jail Time’s trademark: the universe of its sonics and visuals speaking a language of its own. It commands the viewer into society’s unseen corners, weaving with them through tight corridors, packed with painted bodies and piercing stares, to land on urgent otherworldly performances.
Working mainly within such confines requires a certain level of resourcefulness and spontaneity. Roach is the resident director, roping in painters, dancers and assistants to the production from inside. “Movement, energy and color, that’s what really brings forth the vision, but it’s very collaborative,” she explains. Sometimes the ideas come from her, other times Happi, often from the artists. The shoots usually end up mirroring the freeform spirit of the raps themselves, with the team editing and brainstorming as they go. “I come from painting and it’s a very solitary practice, while what we’re doing is completely collective and participatory, and that’s the beauty. That’s been the real adventure,” Roach says, smiling.
Inspired by visits to the villages of ex-inmates across Cameroon, the intricate local craftsmanship and the rich, sprawling mangroves of the Wouri River, the aesthetic vocabulary of Jail Time is ever-expanding. “It’s a dark world, but it can be beautiful at the same time,” Happi says. “Ouh Ngouoya?”, their latest visual, is the first shot in the free world, pulling from the vivid spiritual artworks of Steve Happi’s own tribe, the Bamileke people of the Western Region. As adorned figures writhe to the metallic production, forwards and backwards, it plants one foot firmly in ancient tradition and the other in an Afrofuturist imagination. “We’re establishing our own world that comes not from the prison,” Roach says, “but from the rawness and this strong expression that we’re able to channel because of it and the strong life experience of these guys.”
There are so many incredible, complex stories from the journey so far. But one they both cite as a favorite success is Moussinghi. Not because of a viral moment but because he symbolizes a life changed. A former armed-robber who’s spent a huge portion of adulthood in prison, in and out five times since he was a teenager, he’s now enjoying his longest stint of freedom yet. Since his release in 2020, his mission has involved staying “clean from street life” and nurturing his neighborhood’s youth as an older brother figure. “He’s had a kind of life revolution—this moment of taking consciousness about himself and his position in the world—thanks to music and the power of using it in a positive way,” Roach says. “It’s daily, the struggle outside,” Happi adds. “No one’s there, you’re not between four walls anymore, you can do whatever you want. So there’s temptations. You might go back to bad habits…” Eventually they’d love to provide therapeutic and addiction resources to address the issues that are inextricably tangled up within the prison systems, too, especially with government structures sorely lacking. Roach also cites the importance of prevention and supporting underserved young people to curb the cycle before it begins. “Right now we only have our brains and our abilities to materialize our art, so that’s how we can help them,” Happi explains.
But running a two-person motor hasn't slowed them down. Upskilling prisoners through training to self-run their studios, they’ve established a new base in another Cameroonian prison in Ngoma and another in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso as of last year. Back in Douala, they also have an outpost studio for artists to continue recording and participating once they’re out, in an effort to further stem recidivism.
Creatively, the dreams are just as hefty. A complete live show concept is high on the list, to tour the continent and eventually the rest of the world, too: “They all want to travel. They’re artists, they really want to share with the world,” Happi says. There’s a documentary in the works that incorporates the music of the collective, and their upcoming project is an experimental broadening of the sonic landscape—pairing traditional Cameroonian rhythms with the electronic inflections of Happi’s own DJ origins to create a modern yet affecting Afro-trance concoction.
In Jail Time Records we find a case study in music’s ability to transcend, not just language and geography, but also prejudice and circumstance. “Music speaks to everyone, it brings people together. It’s about unity. It’s about sharing, communication. It’s not only for fun. Music is politics, music is life, music is God. Music is everywhere, daily. Even animals are music, us talking right now, dialogue is musical, our heartbeat is music,” Happi says with enthusiasm. “With Jail Time, I discovered it as an instrument of resistance—that’s how it speaks to me.”