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. 

     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.