Area inmates find freedom through music

One by one, the inmates in striped and orange jumpsuits are let into the multipurpose room, some of them clutching lined sheets of paper upon which they have written what is in their hearts.

Save for a television mounted on the wall, the room is stark and institutional. The men separate a few plastic chairs from the stacks along the wall and stand around chatting and listening to the newest remix of their work playing from the television.
Soon things quiet down. The men gather around the microphone stands and mixer and begin to perform, pointing at one another and ad-libbing lyrics to a song that’s one part rap and one part gospel.
It is the sound of eight men working in unity.

At the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail, rappers, gospel singers, poets and musicians have been collaborating to create music that can be enjoyed by the community. The weekly Music and Poetry Class, which started meeting in April, gives the inmates a lyrical and musical outlet for their thoughts.
A self-described “modern day poet,” 25-year-old Cyril Didier said the class provides a mental escape.
“This class is a good way to release a lot of tension,” Didier said. “A lot of people deal with stress in weird, twisted ways. This is a better way to let go.”
The class was the result of a discussion in an oil painting class about two years ago.

Kris Bowmaster, a second-grade teacher at Charlottesville’s Jackson-Via Elementary School, spends some of his evenings teaching the inmates about art. As the painting class was in its last week, Bowmaster said, the students told him about how they rap in jail. Some performed for him.
Bowmaster had started creating his own beats a few months earlier. He was impressed by the inmates’ skill.
With the help of Phyllis Back, the jail’s programs coordinator, and Jail Superintendent Col. Ronald Matthews, permission for the class came together. Richard DeLoria, a Charlottesville lawyer and fan of inmate art, contributed his services by drawing up a copyright release for the inmates.
Back sent out 400 invitations to the jail’s inmates to apply for the class. To be considered, inmates had to write a poem or page of lyrics from the point of view of a woman in their lives talking about her thoughts on her loved one’s incarceration.
Of the roughly 30 people who submitted essays, eight were chosen.

‘Sit Down and Listen to Me’

The class makeup changes week to week. Sometimes an inmate who doesn’t show has been released or transferred to another facility.
During a class last month, the class seemed split into men in their 20s who were interested in rap and men in their 40s who preferred gospel.
Ronnie Giles, 47, sticks to gospel.
“Rapping is God,” he said. “It draws a younger audience. I will get them to listen to my words. They will get to them.”
Gospel isn’t completely foreign to the younger men in the class, many of whom said their families had strong church ties.
Shadee Gilliam, 23, said he was “born and raised in the church.” On the outside, Gilliam performed in local rap group T3 under the stage name “Ny$e.” When he gets out of jail, Gilliam said, he wants to start a choir.
“This class was a prayer answered because music is a part of me,” Gilliam said.

Both rap and sung lyrics make an appearance in the class works. “Sit Down and Listen to Me,” a song about where the men are in life and the advice they have to offer, contains the rap stylings of the younger men with a soulful chorus by Giles and fellow gospel singer Karl Williams.
Many of the songs are about jail life and the concept of freedom. The lyrics are free of curse words.
“What we are doing is positive and clean,” Back said. “… There is nothing negative or ugly here.”
So far, the class has completed six songs, including a Tupac-style melody called “Eternity.” Bowmaster described it as a gospel song with occasional bouts of rap.
Most of the equipment, such as the Boss drum machine, Korg 12-track digital recorder and keyboard belong to Bowmaster. The jail purchased a microphone and speaker.
Bowmaster is more of a techno listener, but he has gained an appreciation for hip-hop and now owns about 50 CDs recommended by the inmates. Although the inmates know hip-hop, laying down tracks is a new experience for most.
“We’re learning together,” he said. “I know how to use the beat machine, they know how to make the beats.”
Everyone in the class contributes something to the songs, whether it’s lyrics, beats, vocals or keyboards. Even DeLoria is making a musical contribution.
“Kris said he liked the language in the agreement, so they’re working on a piece where the background will be the contract,” DeLoria said. “The ironic thing is that I didn’t copyright it, so I’m odd man out.”
Sounds from the jail also will make their way into the songs. The multipurpose room doesn’t have the best acoustics, but Bowmaster said the album should sound like it was made in the jail because that’s where it was made.
Some songs also may have snippets of police scanner chatter from the correctional officers who stop into the room to make sure the class is going smoothly.

Working with the process

As the songs come together and the men perform them, Bowmaster makes recommendations. The inmates encourage one another and offer constructive feedback to improve the final product. However, things don’t always come together easily.
“Sometimes we’ll record up to three songs in two hours, and then we have times when nothing happens and we wait on someone to nail the lyrics right,” Bowmaster said. “Through the music-making process, all of our issues, including the instructor’s, are put on the table. Sometimes we have to put the music aside and talk. We let each other know what it’s like to have to work with you.”

At home, Bowmaster spends hours of his own time mixing the inmates’ songs. The teacher, who volunteers his time at the jail, said he’s giving himself a year from the start of the class to put out the album.
Bowmaster said the album would be sold online, at the inmate art shows and in businesses that primarily serve the region’s black residents. Half the profits will go to a charity and half will pay for the class to continue.
Bowmaster has been posting some of the songs on his Web site, http://www.proudangel.com. He said he plans to send the tracks to local radio stations.
If the tracks make it on the air, the inmates might not be able to hear them. Still, just getting their voices out there is freeing.
“We keep what we have,” Didier said, “by giving it away.”