Redemption Songs: The Music of Mass Incarceration

25 Essential Tracks Made in Prison

Check out our prison music playlist on YouTube, Apple Music or Spotify.

Say the words “prison music” and many people think of Johnny Cash or the many rappers, from Tupac to Gucci Mane, who have chronicled their time behind bars. But these household names are the tip of the iceberg: For as long as there have been prisons in the United States, people inside them have made music in all sorts of genres for all sorts of reasons.

They’ve survived hours in the sun by singing work songs, found consolation through the blues, and resisted through rap verses, recorded in makeshift studios and over phone lines. They’ve found redemption, rehabilitation, and community in gospel, soul, and funk groups, playing for their friends inside and free-world fans.

If you’re in New York City on Oct. 28, 2026, join us for a concert focused on this music.

“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, The Marshall Project collected 25 songs that capture the history of how people in prison have expressed themselves through sound. Think of it as the story of mass incarceration, one song at a time.

2026

• B. Alexis Is the First Woman to Drop an Album From Prison. But We Can’t Say Her Real Name.
• A Cuban Protest Ballad From ICE Detention
• A Mississippi Prison Band Started in the 1930s. A Modern Version Is Carrying on Tradition.
• The Message Behind This ‘Hamilton’-Style Prison Rap? Pride Can Be Dangerous.
• A Timely Remix of ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ Out of a New York Prison

2010-2025

• This Is the Sound of 1,300 People in Prison Singing Gospel Together
• A Prison Lullaby for Mother’s Day
• How Rapper G. Dep Went From Incarcerated to ‘Influential’
• Ear Hustle’s Antwan Banks Williams Goes Deep on ‘Like Father, Like Son’
• With ‘Live on Death Row,’ Rapper Rrome Alone Condemns the Death Penalty
• An Opera Explores the Strain of Prison on a Marriage
• The Young Men Rapping and Beatmaking From a Youth Lockup
• Two 17-Year-Olds in Custody Wrote a Love Song in an Arts Program. One Didn’t Survive.
• He Wrote a Song Called ‘Freedom.’ Now He’s Free.

1990s-2000s

• Police Used Mac Dre’s Music Against Him. In Jail, He Used the Phone to Get Revenge.
• In the Early ’90s, the Lifers Group Tried to Warn Kids About the Perils of Prison
• An Iconic ’90s Neo-Soul Record About Life After Lockup
• ‘Music From the Big House’ Delivers Blues and Soul from Angola Prison

1970s-1980s

• Stevie Wonder and James Brown Put This Prison Funk Band on the Map
• The Incredible Story Behind The Escorts, a 1970s Soul Band Formed in Prison
• Meet One of the Most Prolific Artists From Prison Music’s Golden Age
• The San Quentin Prison Album That Should Have Been a Classic

1930s-1960s

• The Bootlegging, Blues Singing Star of 1930s Prison Radio
• ‘Forty-Four Hammers’ Is Part of a Rich History of Prison Work Songs