Redemption Songs
Recording from a booth the size of a storage cupboard inside one of Cameroon’s largest prisons, Jail Time Records is reconfiguring just what a record label can be, platforming incarcerated artists while also offering a pathway to a new life. For WIP magazine Issue 10, we travel to Douala to visit the people behind the label.
Words: Thomas Gorton
Images: Dione Roach
Douala is a relentless machine, a metropolis that whirrs with the sound of les motos, thousands of young bikers decked out in fake luxury brands, bomber jackets, sunglasses and beanies, ferrying people through the labyrinthine streets of Cameroon’s largest city. The roadsides are corridors of industry where people grill suya, fish and plantain, sell metal, clothes or fruit. Makossa – traditional music that originated in Douala in the late 19th century – blasts out of sound systems in districts across the central African country’s economic capital. It’s an airless, humid place, alive with color. A kaleidoscopic terrain that doesn’t rest, a lightning ball of pure energy.
“Driving in Douala is like playing a video game,” filmmaker Dione Roach turns and says to me as she navigates potholes, motorbikes weaving in and out of the traffic, and people darting across the road. We’re on the way to New Bell Prison, Cameroon’s largest jail, and widely regarded as the country’s toughest too. Alongside me in the back of the Yaris is music producer Steve “Vidou H” Happi. In 2018, within the walls of New Bell, Happi and Roach co-founded Jail Time Records, a non-profit record label that works with and releases the music of the prison’s currently incarcerated inmates, as well as former prisoners.
I provide ID and hand over my phone to armed guards and we enter New Bell. Initially built in 1935 as a military barracks, the prison is situated in the heart of the Littoral Region, a busy working class district with little indication of the nearly 5000 detainees housed behind walls just meters away. Today, there’s a football tournament taking place in the courtyard, with teams made up from different quarters of the prison. As we speak to the guards and wait for approval to enter there is a rare moment of relative quiet, but when we walk out into the courtyard the unique sonic intensity of Douala returns. Lining up in their droves around the makeshift pitch, prisoners bang drums, sing and dance, while a DJ wheels up tunes and sounds air horns. All of the city’s vibrancy is here.
The Jail Time squad’s breakout track is arguably 2022’s Afro house banger “Sa Ngando”, produced by Happi, who created an electro-infused beat that he refers to as “Jamminal style.” “Sa Ngando” features the vocals of the tall, imposing vibesman Empereur, who’s been in New Bell for nearly ten years on several separate charges related to aggression. Roach’s video, which was shot inside New Bell, captures the charisma and intensity of the lanky Empereur and his boys ‘the Latinos,’ who appear in the clip dancing, coated in red and blue body paint. Released in June, the track quickly traveled far beyond the confines of the prison; Happi and Roach tell me they’re regularly tagged in videos of the song being played out in clubs in New York and Paris. As soon as I walk into the courtyard Empereur is unmistakable; much taller than many of his fellow inmates, wearing a full Cameroon football kit and thumping a drum that dictates the rhythm of the afternoon, while the match plays out behind him. Across a language barrier, and despite the cacophony, we start to briefly discuss “Sa Ngando”; then he quickly cajoles his crew into a chant of “Welcome to Cameroon, welcome to Africa.” One match ends, and the crowd erupts as a Douala-renowned dancer, called Babazou, emerges onto the courtyard for an impromptu performance, while New Bell’s resident DJ Prince spins a track by Cameroonian artist Aveiro Djess. It’s hard to imagine that many other prisons around the world could create an atmosphere like this. We make our way across the courtyard and head to the prison’s tiny studio, where producer Bid Dre is listening back to demos alongside a couple of guys rapping along. He works with a simple setup of Fruity Loops running on an old laptop, two speakers and a mic.
Dione Roach first met Steve “Vidou H” Happi inside New Bell while Happi was imprisoned there, falsely accused (and since acquitted) of murdering his father. Roach was teaching art and dance in the prison for an NGO, and a rap crew kept taking the mic during classes. With Roach’s encouragement, the prisoners’ desire to make music was so palpable that she approached the prison about building a recording studio. They agreed and Happi – who was producing music prior to his detainment – was tasked with running it. Since then, he’s made over 1,000 songs and has developed an intensely close creative partnership with Roach. She shoots all the videos for Jail Time releases and he makes all the beats, and they constantly discuss each other’s output; shaping the look, feel and sound of the label. The project is their life’s work. Last year’s 24-track compilation Jail Time Vol.1 was a mission statement that moved between trap, drill, Afro house and R&B, all recorded inside New Bell. One of the standout songs on the album was Jeje’s “Show Me The Way”, a drill-influenced R&B track with a video directed by Roach on New Bell’s women’s wing. Jeje was imprisoned in 2020 for stealing money from her abusive uncle and then spent time on the run in Douala. She describes her experience in New Bell as extremely hard, but while in there she found Jail Time, music and herself. In total, she recorded over 20 tracks while inside, a process that she says made prison “less terrifying.”
“People find their freedom inside the studio,” says Happi, as we sit sharing plantain and shrimp at the port in Douala, one of the city’s only serene spots. “You see them smile there. When you’re in the studio, you don’t think about time, you don’t think about your problems. Even if your body is within four walls, your soul is always free.” Happi was released from prison in December 2019, but the day after he was freed he went straight back into New Bell. He looks upon his two years inside the jail, locked up for a crime he didn’t commit, as a gift. “For me it was a blessing from God,” he says. “I’m an optimist and I’m always focussed on the little lights in the darkness. To be able to have this project, to work with all these guys, our brothers. You can receive your blessings in the darkness. It was just natural going back there the day after I’d been released – we were working on the album. It’s a calling.”
Both Happi and Roach talk passionately about redemption, and of the search for something within people that may not be so evident. “Prison is really intense, everyone has problems,” says Roach. “We want to transform that into art, that’s the raw essence of what we’re trying to do. I was really determined to make [the label] work. We wanted to see it flourish and we think it’s happening now, which is very satisfying. The real deep message and the beauty of it, is the power of art to bring out something beautiful when it seems like it isn’t there.”
One embodiment of Jail Time’s impact is Kengol DJ, who at one time in his life was sleeping in disused public toilets and earning cash in any way he could – cleaning, working at a taxi rank and performing as an atalaku DJ. He spent seven months inside New Bell, arrested for ‘vagabonding’, or more specifically smoking weed and having no ID card. Inside, he found the studio and last year released an Afro drill track called “Atalaku Drill Vol 1”, which was picked up and supported by a well-known Cameroonian TikToker. Regularly recognized on the streets of Douala, Kengol DJ is now free and living in the new Jail Time studio that was built for ex-prisoners to continue working on music post-release. “We are fighting for this, to see these guys fly with their own wings,” says Happi. “Kengol is a star now – when we walk through Douala, people want a selfie with him. He was sleeping on the streets, now he has shelter and is recognized as a valued part of society.”
Phones are banned in the prison, but from time to time inmates manage to get hold of one, which allows imprisoned artists to see the comments left under their music on social media. The fact that Empereur could see “Sa Ngando” resonating on the other side of the planet left a deep impression on him and his crew. “He’s really proud, even just to see himself on YouTube,” says Roach. “His guys, ‘the Latinos,’ were talking about it the other day in prison. We knew it was a good song but we never really thought that would be the song that would grab the most attention – it’s a victory for all the team. The energy of it comes from the prison. It’s Jail Time’s pure product.”
We leave the port as night descends, but not before Happi takes the number of an elderly Cameroonian guitarist who’s been wandering around the area singing. Xylophone players amble about playing traditional Cameroonian music called medjan. For now though, it’s back into a different sound world, back into the bubbling cauldron of Douala and the roar of les motos.
The following day we head to a dance off in the district of Ndokoti, near a junction that is said to be one of Central Africa’s busiest. We’re here to see dancers that will be performing in a Jail Time video shoot; a mix of members from Douala dance posses ‘Star Monster’ and ‘Battle Born Crew.’ They battle it out to Afro electro and hip hop tracks, beside a dilapidated building that’s undergoing renovations, just off a hectic highway. From there we make our way to the Carrefour Des Immeubles in the Kotto district, a housing estate where we meet some of the Jail Time crew for a photoshoot. Moussinghi, D.OX and El Djafar link up with us on a street next to the projects, along with a young fashion designer from Douala, who runs a brand called Drip For Fame and has brought along some clothes for the artists to wear. The mood is good and Roach gets to work directing the crew as the sun heads down over the city and shadows fall on the tower blocks.
The Jail Time studio is just a short distance away and once Roach is satisfied that she has the shots she needs, we walk over there for a session. During my time in Douala, Happi has been busy in the background on his computer making a beat. It’s got the makings of a dance floor anthem – fierce beats with an infectious topline – but thus far he’s only heard it through his laptop speakers. He plugs in, the beat comes through the studio system, and the room comes alive. It bangs. Within half an hour an obvious song structure has emerged and all the artists are contributing; taking their turns in traditional rap crew format, like N.W.A or the Wu Tang Clan. Kengol DJ spits a frantic, hyperactive verse; Ej Djafar sings an autotuned melody; Moussinghi stands up and drops a catchy, repetitive hook; while D.OX and his cousin Brown provide memorable backing vocals. It’s one of the most successful ‘jams’ I’ve ever seen and soon the whole studio is jumping: everyone is filming each other on phones and dancing while Roach moves around with her camera (she tends to document nearly everything).
Moussinghi is a gentle, softly spoken character, a little older than the rest of the crew. He has a beautiful voice, tender but powerful, and from his demeanor you’d never think that he’d served 12 years for a string of armed robberies. “I learned to sing when I was a kid, I could also play guitar,” he says. “ When I was about nine years old, my father would take me to the stream, I could hear him playing instruments. I kept these melodies in my head. I was very happy when the studio arrived in New Bell – there is a lot of talent in prison, we cannot just abandon it. Through Jail Time I see hope.” Today, he has been free for four years and is determined to stay on the right path. “I don’t focus on anything different, just my music,” he says. “Through music, I can be somebody. I have to keep myself like a man – man can change his character, man can change his behavior, man can look for what is good. Music changes lives, music can make a better future for those who believe.”
Ej Djafar is the most obviously fashion-conscious of the group in the studio, wearing a leather jacket and a silver chain with short, dreaded hair. He has a contagious kindness and warmth, always smiling. Outside on the balcony of the studio, overlooking a residential area of Douala, he talks to me about his life, with Roach translating. El Djafar is from the Kingdom of Bamoun, which is a six hour drive from Douala towards northwest Cameroon. While visiting the city for just one weekend in 2018, police raided the property he was in and found ammunition in the house – the people he was staying with were armed robbers. He was charged with the illegal holding of weapons, found guilty of having no ID card, and thrown in jail. He left New Bell in 2020 and now lives here with Kengol – Happi taught him how to record so he runs the studio, working with the musicians that come through. Like many of the artists I speak to, he sees his sentence as a blessing, telling me that “the prison is a house of consciousness, where you can become conscious.” But it cannot be ignored that many of these people I’m speaking to have been incarcerated for crimes that they did not commit, or jailed for extremely petty offenses. According to non-profit organization Human Is Right Cameroon, more than 70% of Cameroon’s prison population is illiterate or educated below high school level and 69% are detained pre-trial, just waiting, in brutally harsh conditions. New Bell itself is visibly overcrowded and many of the inmates are young, carrying the scars – physical and mental – of street life in Douala. That a prison initiative like Jail Time can provide such joy and structure to their lives is an indication of how few and far between opportunities are.
Now that he’s out of prison and training as a studio engineer as well as working on his own music, El Djafar wants to look to the future. He has an Afro electro track produced by Happi coming out soon that he talks excitedly about, as he performs it in his own Bamoun dialect. He’s immensely proud of his heritage and culture and wants to put the Bamoun people on an international stage, people he was taken away from during one weekend spent in the wrong house in Douala.
It becomes clear while we’re in the studio that Roach’s role isn’t just to be a documentarian, she’s a maternal figure to the Jail Time artists too. They constantly ask to speak to her privately about problems that they have, whether that be family-related or financial. Outside, she stands with me as Kengol DJ talks about his life’s turnaround. “I feel good, I feel comfortable,” he says. “When you live on the streets it’s hard. There are days you don’t even wash. You have to fight for everything – for food, for shelter. It takes a lot of energy.” Kengol’s style as a rapper is full-on, pumping out bars like machine gun fire over Afro drill beats. Roach’s video captures that intensity in the video for his 2023 single “Atalaku Drill Vol 1”, shot on the streets of Douala. Right now he’s calm, reflecting on a newfound stability and visibility. “You don’t usually get respect on the streets here,” he says. “In Europe, coming from the street might even give you something extra, but in Cameroon there is not that consciousness. The fact I receive that respect now means a lot. I have people writing to me on Instagram and TikTok from all over the world saying that they respect where I’ve come from.”
While we’ve been talking outside, Moussinghi has been working on a new song with Happi. As the session is winding down, a power cut brings recording to an abrupt stop, a fairly common occurrence in the area. Moussinghi continues singing, a zephyr-like protest song that floats through the different rooms of the building. The other artists join in, the sound rising over the distant hum of Douala, a chorus of people finding light in the darkness.
WIP magazine Issue 10 is available at selected global retailers, Carhartt WIP Stores and online shop.
