{"id":44157,"date":"2025-08-18T19:34:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T19:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/18\/documentary-songs-from-the-hole-will-make-you-rethink-everything\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T19:34:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T19:34:22","slug":"documentary-songs-from-the-hole-will-make-you-rethink-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/18\/documentary-songs-from-the-hole-will-make-you-rethink-everything\/","title":{"rendered":"Documentary \u2018Songs From the Hole\u2019 Will Make You Rethink Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\n\tMusic, more than a product or anything else, is a sacred act. That\u2019s the prevailing premise of director Contessa Gayles\u2019 award-winning Songs From The Hole,<\/em> a 90-minute documentary<\/a> on Netflix<\/a> that highlights Long Beach native, artist and activist James \u201cJJ\u201988\u201d Jacobs\u2019 evolution from a wayward 15-year-old who committed a murder into a beacon of what he calls the \u201cutility of nonviolence, art to tell stories, and being vulnerable.\u201d In the documentary, which won 10 awards on the 2024 film festival circuit, Gayles expertly weaves jailhouse phone calls with JJ\u201988 with a visual album that he crafted in prison, as well as a harrowing fly-on-the-wall chronicle of how his family supported him throughout his incarceration and repeated attempts at freedom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJJ\u201988 was freed from prison in 2022 after 18 years. But before he was physically liberated, he was spiritually liberated by a chance encounter with the man who killed his brother. The documentary is a glimpse of the practicality and necessity of restorative justice that shares themes with Gayles\u2019 2018 CNN documentary The Feminist on Cellblock Y<\/em>, about then-incarcerated producer Richie Reseda starting a prison feminist group (Reseda is a co-producer on Songs From The Hole<\/em> and made the beats that JJ\u201988 rapped over). According to Gayle and JJ\u201988, who spoke on the doc at a screening in July in New York City, it was made over several years, and began while he was still incarcerated, which presented logistical issues (JJ\u201988 came home eight months into the editing process). JJ\u201988 had written the treatment for the visual album after being inspired by Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s Lemonade<\/em> and self-titled albums, bonding together songs he wrote while in solitary confinement, and recorded with Reseda\u2019s help.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tGayle said she completed about one music video per month, then weaved them into the rest of the footage. There was initially consideration of visually demarcating the music videos from the raw documentary footage with different aspect ratios, but she decided that everything should remain uniform. It was the right choice; the seamless visual presentation allowed her to keep things lively while JJ\u201988 is talking, alternating old photos and video of the Jacobs family with familiar conceits from the visual album, which, derived from his life experience, centers young Black men, mothers, and the justice system. There are repeated appearances from an adolescent and incarcerated man playing JJ\u201988, and another male who portraying his brother Victor, who was killed three days after JJ\u201988 fatally shot a man in what he admits was a \u201csenseless\u201d act of trying to bolster his street reputation. Recurring scenes of children dancing cue to the inner child that Jacobs, and too many other Black men, lose to the streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tDevonte Hoy as James \u201cJJ\u201988\u201d Jacobs<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n\tThe layered videos and songs feel unmistakably inspired by the artistry of a Kendrick Lamar or Vince Staples, often culling themes of faith, morality, family, and violence. During a song lamenting \u201ccrime waves,\u201d two boys jump in the ocean, drowning as JJ\u201988 raps about the treachery of the Long Beach streets. JJ\u201988, a representation of incarcerated people, returns from the water a man in prison blues, while Victor, symbolizing men prematurely lost to violence, is still a child. They both walk up to a maternal figure on the sands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd Gayles does a great job of leading up to each video with resonant quotes from JJ\u201988\u2019s support system: his mother Janine, father William, stepmother Jackie, sister Reneasha, and wife Indigo. During one juncture, William, a preacher, talks about how he maintains his faith that JJ\u201988 will come home from his life sentence. The documentary then shows a video of him delivering a sermon, bellowing, \u201cI have a little praise song that I wanna sing,\u201d which seamlessly slips into JJ\u201988\u2019s reflective \u201cwake up.\u201d The song is bookended with another clip of his father asking, \u201cHave you ever been in jail? A spiritual jail?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tThe documentary does a good job of highlighting a support system that many men in JJ\u201988\u2019s former position, doing life in jail, don\u2019t have. There are warm moments, such as him singing with his wife Indigo, joking about getting older with his mother and sister, and celebrating with them when state officials co-sign his deservedness for early release. They\u2019re also there for him in his low moments, such as when his father consoles him after a parole denial. The documentary fleshes out his relationship with each family member and lays out the stakes in a way that the viewer is just as crushed as William when the jail call cuts off before he can give his full farewell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring the conversation, JJ\u201988 tearfully laments, \u201cthey don\u2019t believe me,\u201d to his father, telling him that the parole board used his appearance on a music project called Defund The Sheriff <\/em>against him. The moment was yet another glimpse of the justice system scapegoating hip-hop<\/a> for its own agenda; in this case, it kept JJ\u201988 incarcerated. The documentary highlights hip-hop as a tool that helped JJ\u201988 parse his feelings and rehabilitate, the buzzword that prison advocates claim the system exists for. But to the state, during that particular parole meeting, his music was merely a threat. As a music writer, I\u2019ve become accustomed to how artists have historically marketed authenticity and clamored for listeners to believe their lyrics connote real-life violence. But we see JJ\u201988, who actually lived the treachery of the streets\u00a0 \u2014 and learned the error of it \u2014 desperate to shed any negative connotation of his art. When he wants to be believed as a productive human being, while his music peers want to be believed as living their raps, it makes you rethink what believability is worth from people who can\u2019t see your humanity.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tJovon Times as Victor Benjamin and Myles Lassiter as James \u201cJJ\u201988\u201d Jacobs<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNetflix<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe documentary is a strong case for the benefits of restorative justice. During one scene, Indigo notes that she was a victim of sexual assault and was \u201cretraumatized\u201d by the criminal process. While she was looking for \u201cclosure, justice, healing, validation,\u201d she realized the system wasn\u2019t apt to offer that, dishing one of the documentary\u2019s strongest lines: \u201cThe system is not prioritizing me, it\u2019s prioritizing punishment, and my healing could never be found in someone else\u2019s punishment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\n\tEarly in the documentary, JJ\u201988 meets a man named \u201cJ\u201d while in prison, and has a powerful discussion with him about regretting being in jail for murder, but also realizing that, as JJ\u201988 says later, \u201cmy shortcomings don\u2019t diminish my good.\u201d He admits that \u201cJ\u201d embracing his humanity helped him do the same, leading him to confront the \u201cgrief, cowardice, shame, and heartache\u201d he faced after committing a murder. Society essentially asks the accused to deny their actions to attempt to beat a case or avoid public scrutiny, but it was only through JJ\u201988\u2019s admission and reflection on his darkness that he was able to heal and forgive himself. And when he shows mercy to \u201cJ,\u201d real name Jamaal Smith, after realizing he killed his brother, he acknowledged his ability to forgive his brother\u2019s killer as the atonement for his own sins. Who knows what his healing would have looked like without talking to the very man who killed his brother \u2014 the circumstance speaks to the possibility of a system where victims can talk with violators, especially ones allowed to interrogate their regret outside the brutality of prison. JJ\u201988 said he figured his brother\u2019s killer was \u201canother one of us,\u201d speaking to the hordes of men disillusioned by the system. And just like JJ\u201988 was able to see his humanity in Jamaal, hopefully viewers can see their capacity for forgiveness, reflection, and growth in him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile in solitary confinement, JJ\u201988 admits that he felt called by God and began writing his raps with no expectations of them. It\u2019s refreshing to hear an artist \u2014 a pretty good one \u2014 say that in our increasingly callous, numbers-obsessed ecosystem. His experience reflects the genesis of music-making, when it was simply a chance for everyday people to express themselves and make sense of our world. When songs were first sung, there was no option to become an unimpeachable celebrity from it, just a chance to vent, or rejoice, or go wherever one\u2019s imagination took them. Songs From The Hole<\/em> might not make the number-tabulating stan armies back down from mast and live in harmony, but hopefully it will encourage some of us to be more precious with artistry and artists. While few of them have a story as cinematic as JJ\u201988\u2019s, who is pursuing a career as a professional musician, they all deserve consideration as people just like us who decided to share with the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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