When you love a song, you feel a kinship with the person who made it. “Music is the most humanizing element this country has,” says BL Shirelle, who spent 10 years in prison and now co-runs Freer Records, a label that releases music by incarcerated people.
Inspired by this work, Marshall Project journalist Maurice Chammah built a list of songs made behind bars over the last century. In Redemption Songs, he tells the story of American mass incarceration — one song at a time — exploring how music offers routes to rehabilitation, redemption and resistance. Sign up for this limited-run newsletter (March to September 2026) and check out past issues as they’re added to this page.
CREDITS
REPORTING
Maurice Chammah
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Rachel Kincaid
EDITING
Akiba Solomon
EDITORIAL GUIDANCE
Annaliese Griffin
EDITORIAL DIRECTION
Ruth Baldwin
PRODUCT
Elan Kiderman Ullendorff, Ana Graciela Méndez, Aithne Feay, Ryan Murphy
PRODUCTION GUIDANCE
Mara Corbett
MULTIMEDIA GUIDANCE
Raghu Vadarevu
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
Ashley Dye, Brandon Wall
COPY EDITING
Lauren Hardie, Ghazala Irshad, Kelsey Adams
OUTREACH
Terri Troncale, Ruth Baldwin, Rebecca McCray
MARKETING
Ebony Reed
LEGAL CONSULTATION
Covington and Burling LLP