New Bell Prison in Douala, Cameroon, is often regarded as the country’s toughest correctional facility and operates as a city within a city. Within its walls, inmates have adapted slack laws to fit their environment, featuring their own informal taxis, a market where convicts buy and sell items like fried cassava and beignet pastries, and burly prisoners who assist stretched guards with law enforcement, according to the BBC. The clearest example of this adaptive spirit is Vice, an on-site music studio and non-profit label founded in 2018 that produces mini stars out of the facility’s most talented prisoners.
Inside New Bell Prison and the Birth of Jail Time Records
Co-founded by former inmate Steve Happi and Italian artist Dione Roach, the studio is rudimentary—consisting of a small, sweaty recording booth attached to a room with a solitary computer. Despite these modest conditions, the studio has become a site of catharsis and creativity. Happi, who has been free since December 2019, still returns to the facility to record. He estimates that around 300 artists have passed through the studio, many of whom had never made music before. Happi and Roach remain adamant that anyone is welcome at the studio regardless of ability, genre, or the crimes they have committed. Speaking about the project, Happi described it as an instrument of resistance where participants can share friendship and love so their voices can be heard, helping them forget the four walls and find freedom.
Global Reach, Documentaries, and Award-Winning Recognition
Music produced inside the facility has traveled far beyond the prison gates, gaining fans in South Africa, the US, and Argentina. Gang leader Empereur has amassed 24,000 YouTube views with a music video filmed entirely inside the prison, while earlier this year, the label put on a huge concert for inmates in the New Bell courtyard. The label also released Vice, an album featuring 24 trap, drill, and afro-house tracks produced within the prison. Among the releases is Nigerian artist Lala Badman’s single “Omo Alaja,” with a music video shot during a prison concert and inside the prison kitchen.
The label and its studio are the subject of an acclaimed documentary named after the studio. Directed by Happi and Dione Roach and filmed over six years in New Bell, the film won three prizes, including best documentary feature, at New York’s Tribeca film festival.
Inmate Artists Find Salvation and Launch Careers
For many incarcerated individuals, the studio serves as a sanctuary from the harsh realities of prison life. Magloire Noumedem, who records under the name Kengol DJ, spent seven months inside New Bell Prison after being arrested on December 23, 2019, for vagabonding. During his time inside, he found the studio and recorded music that landed on the label’s compilation album. Now out of prison, his main musical focus is a blend of drill and coupé-décalé that he calls Atalaku Drill. His single Ca Va Aller (It's Gonna Be Ok)
was released on Okayafrica through Jail Time Records as a cry of survival and a fresh take on the genre.
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