Creating an album is no easy feat. Creating one from inside one of the most overcrowded and under-resourced jail systems in the country? Nearly impossible. But that’s exactly what Bending the Bars set out to do. The result is a groundbreaking hip-hop album written and performed by incarcerated artists from Florida’s Broward County Jail that provides a platform for hidden talent and a blueprint for similar projects nationwide. Released on June 11, 2025 by FREER Records, Bending the Bars will also be followed by a documentary detailing its creation. A series of single releases with precede the full album from March 31, 2025.
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In 2003, Bill doubled down on his longstanding appreciation of that work by establishing the Eyejammie Fine Arts Gallery devoted to hip-hop photography. In 2015, after the gallery’s closing, The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture acquired 400 Eyejammie photo prints by 59 different photographers.
JASON MORAN PERFORMS THE MUSIC OF DUKE ELLINGTON: MY HEART SINGS
D’Wayne Wiggins, one of the founding members of the legendary R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné! passed away Friday, this according to his family’s announcement on social media. He was 64 years old.
On the heels on Black Music Month, The Town Hall presented Keeping The Faith: Celebrating 30 Years of Music and Entertainment with Singer/Songwriter Faith Evan
The music and entertainment world reacted in shock and sorrow after the tragic death of Angie Stone, the pioneering singer-songwriter and hip-hop trailblazer who was killed in a car accident early Saturday morning in Montgomery, Alabama. She was 63.
TV series director turned filmmaker Rachael Holder has love and triads on her mind. That’s got to be the reason she’s teamed with first time screenwriter Paul Zimmerman to tell this romantic, urban dramedy set on the streets of New York’s largest borough, Brooklyn. A place where brownstones dot the avenues and the people inside them each have a unique story.
That’s the path of many bright, famous musicians. Struggle. It’s all about the art. Breakthrough. Success. Excess. Downward spiral. Comeback. Fizzle under the weight of drugs, drink and celebrity. That’s the tale this informative Sly & The Family Stone tribute doc tells. That’s the notion created by Oscar®-winning filmmaker Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson whose Summer of Soul (or…When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), a drummer/musician turned documentarian who redefined the soul music doc genre. With him at the helm, you know at least the music will be a thrill. And it is.
Sudanese filmmakers, Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy, Timeea Ahmed along with British director Phil Cox have chronicled the brave exploits of five individuals who ran for their lives. Four storylines depict their shock, fear, grief and ability to survive. Haunted by what they’ve seen and lost. Losing that secure feeling we get from having the stable homes, neighborhoods, communities, jobs and routines that ground us.
Documentarians Maia Lekow, a renowned Kenyan musician/filmmaker, and her Australian-born husband and co-director Christopher King have given Kenya and the world a point-by-point project outline on how to snatch an outdated institution from the ashes and make it appropriate for the new world. They’ve chronicled the work of a writer named Shiro and a publisher named Wachuka. Two feisty, spirted academics who are turning a symbol of segregation into a lesson on perseverance and community building. The women get a 5-year government contract to renovate and refurbish a library that was segregated until 1958. They tear it apart and build it back up.