JJ killed someone when he was fifteen. He was embroiled in gang culture and wanted to belong, and saw the shooting as a challenge.
Fifteen years into a 40 to life sentence, he creates this visual album of songs reflecting on what he did and where he is now. That’s the premise of Songs From The Hole, directed by Contessa Gayles.
In no way glamorising JJ or his choices, this does have a valid point to make about a US prison sentence that does nothing to rehabilitate prisoners.
This young man was a child when he was incarcarated, and around the same time, his older brother was murdered in an echo of the murder JJ had committed.
The musical segments are brilliantly constructed, sometimes using animated images alongside JJ’s rapped lyrics, honest, raw and reflective.
The ‘hole’ of the title is a small solitary confinement cell where inmates can spend months at a time. Actors portray JJ and his family, but I believe the voices you hear are the real people.
Growing up in the penal system with no possibility of a life outside the prison walls, JJ dreams of freedom and the milestones he has missed.
We don’t hear much about why he took the path to kill he did, why he spent his childhood in such a vicious and toxic place which suggests the route to happiness and acceptance is through using a knife or a gun.
As one song puts it “if they hadn’t give me life, I’d probably be killed by my own kind, by my own knife, and put it online”. A harsh reality, a harsh justice.
His parents continue to have faith that he will be released someday. They have lost two sons to a system that failed them. His mother: “My child was crying out, but I didn’t hear him.”
This is a powerful film which highlights the problems with a punitive prison system without passing judgement.
A fresh approach may well ignite a fresh debate on the cycle of murder and revenge. This is a film that provokes but also offers a sense of penance, peace, and positivity.
Songs From The Hole was screened at this year’s Vashon Island Film Festival.
***.5