5 months of singing in jail

Our work in the Northampton Prison continues to grow, now 5 months since we began weekly rehearsals there. Today, we had a spectacular rehearsal. The energy was amazing. A dozen guys have been coming weekly for the past 5 months and the growth has been staggering. We have about 10 songs we’ve been working on, and we cycle through about 4 or 5 of them each time.

Today, one of the guys, Mike, shared his rhyming skills and damn, did he blow us away. Daniel, Sherod, and Mike were singing “Yo” by Chris Brown, an R&B love song from 2005, when Mike launched into an inspired freestyle rhyme about his relationship with his girlfriend. It was riveting to behold him weave a tale off the top of his head that not only captured his feelings for her but also rhymed and fit the tone and theme of the song perfectly. Amazing.

Next up is “Waiting Room” by Fugazi. It has spectacular energy. Everyone is into it. Yelling the lyrics, and chanting along together, it’s like an anthem. Bob’s thinking of doing this for the April 1st show but is really looking forward to performing it at the Prison show as well.

We finished with our 2nd attempt at “Forever Young”, the song which has been sung so many times by Y@H has been given new life by these guys, and they’ve embraced it completely.

I’ve begun filming video of the rehearsals, but we don’t have the necessary rights from the inmates/prison to share them yet. In this shot, Gregg, Chris, and Nelson run through “Help Me” by Johnny Cash.

(This article was originally written on February 18, 2015 but first published today here on Medium)