In brief
In Douala’s New Bell prison, a city‑within‑a‑city, a fledgling studio called Jail Time Records has given inmates a voice and a platform. Inmates run cour‑tyards like markets, transport messages on foot, and even act as the prison’s unofficial guards. The label, founded in 2018, turned the rap‑star Empereur into a YouTube sensation and sparked a documentary that won prizes at Tribeca. While overcrowding, disease and violence continue to plague the facility, the music program offers prisoners a sense of freedom and hope, and has even drawn support from the prison administration. Expanding beyond New Bell, the project now reaches a central prison in Burkina Faso, spreading the chance for redemption through song.
In Douala’s New Bell prison, a city‑within‑a‑city, inmates run cour‑tyards like markets, carry messages on foot, and even serve as a kind of informal guard force.
Jail Time Records, a small studio set up in 2018, turned prison life into a creative outlet, turning rappers such as Empereur into regional stars and producing a documentary that won awards at Tribeca.
The label’s rough recording booth—just a sweaty room, a single computer and a microphone—has become a place where inmates write, record and share songs that reach listeners across the globe, from South Africa to the United States and Argentina.
Happy, a former inmate who co‑founded the studio, says the music gives prisoners a sense of liberation: “We don’t think about the four walls so much; we find the freedom in our voices.”
While New Bell remains overcrowded and has suffered outbreaks of cholera and gun violence, the program has earned the support of court‑appointed officials, who even attended a recent concert and danced alongside performers.
The studio has expanded beyond the Nigerian capital, opening a new site in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in 2023, with the same goal of turning inmates’ talents into a platform for change.
Female artist Jeje, whose Afrobeats track “Show Me The Way” debuted in 2022, is the first woman to register with the label, illustrating that jail music reaches all corners of the prison system.
For artists in New Bell, music is a lantern that offers a brighter future: a shift from “them against the world” to feeling “important” and having a place in society.
© 2026 BBC News Africa. All rights reserved.
