Jail Time Records Turns New Bell Prison Into a Stage

Last month, a documentary named after Jail Time Records won three prizes at New York’s Tribeca film festival, pulling global attention toward a music label operating from inside New Bell, one of Cameroon’s most notorious prisons.

That timing matters because the story is not only about art surviving confinement. It’s about inmates becoming visible, monetized, and publicly branded while still living in a prison that held 4,700 prisoners in 2022, four times its capacity, according to Human Rights Watch figures cited by BBC World.

Last month at Tribeca, New Bell’s prison record label became impossible to dismiss

Jail Time Records is the strange, sharp contradiction at the center of New Bell. The prison, in Douala, functions almost like a compressed city. BBC World describes inmate “taxis” who run messages through crowded courtyards, prisoner enforcers who help guards police the facility, and a market where convicts trade food such as fried cassava and beignet pastries.

Inside that world sits a rudimentary studio: a small, hot recording booth linked to a room with one computer. From there, prisoners record songs, produce music videos, and reach listeners far outside Cameroon.

The label’s most visible prison artist is Empereur, described by the BBC as the feared leader of gangs inside and outside the prison. The music video for his song Sa Ngando, filmed entirely in prison, has reached 24,000 views on YouTube.

That number is modest by mainstream music standards. Inside a prison, it changes the power dynamic. A man serving time can become searchable, replayable, and discussed abroad. The BBC reports that songs from New Bell inmates have gained fans from as far away as South Africa, the US and Argentina.

“It's this instrument of resistance… where we can really share friendship, love and our voices can be heard,” Steve Happi, the former inmate who co-founded Jail Time Records, told the BBC’s Talking Movies programme. “We don't think anymore about the four walls - we find the freedom.”

XOOMAR analysis: that quote captures the project’s power, but also its tension. Jail Time Records humanizes prisoners. It also turns their confinement into content.

In 2018, a prison dance class turned into a studio with official permission

The label began in 2018, when Italian artist Dione Roach volunteered for a non-profit organization running events inside New Bell. During a dance class, a group of rappers took over the microphone and began freestyling. Roach asked prison authorities for permission to start a studio. They agreed.

She then brought in Steve Happi to run the studio as producer and sound engineer. According to the BBC, Happi had ended up in New Bell after a family dispute over what should be done with his late father’s body. Jail Time Records says he was accused of killing his father and was acquitted two years later.

The BBC does not detail the label’s contracts, censorship rules, recording schedules, or approval process for individual songs and videos. That gap matters. A prison label can’t be assessed like an ordinary independent music project, because every artist’s access to equipment, movement, and audience depends on institutional permission.

Still, the output is not casual. The BBC says the video for Heart of Stone, performed by Stone, has high production value, strong storytelling, and uses fellow inmates as actors and crew.

Stone, a former soldier in Cameroon’s presidential guard, was sentenced to 10 years in New Bell for robbery and illegal possession of firearms. He insists he is not guilty. In the documentary, he repeatedly tries to reach his young daughter Maira by phone.

“It's been a long time. She needs to hear my voice from time to time, so she doesn't forget about her father,” Stone says in a voice message after failing again to get through.

That is the emotional engine of Jail Time Records. The songs travel because they carry details that court files usually flatten.

In 2022, the numbers made the prison’s harsh reality harder to ignore

The most important data point in the BBC report is not a stream count. It is the prison count.

In 2022, Human Rights Watch reported that New Bell housed 4,700 prisoners inside crumbling walls, four times its capacity. The BBC also cites rights groups saying overcrowding and unsanitary conditions helped cholera spread rapidly during an outbreak four years ago. At least six inmates died.

New Bell also has a documented history of violence. In 2008, guards shot 16 inmates dead during an attempted breakout. The documentary also captures inmate-on-inmate intimidation, including Empereur shaking down a young prisoner for a necklace chain and flip-flops.

The available BBC reporting does not provide pretrial detention figures for New Bell or Cameroon. It also does not say how many Jail Time Records artists are awaiting final judgment versus serving sentences. That limits any firm claim about due process from this source alone.

But the contrast is still stark: a music video can leave New Bell instantly, while a prisoner’s legal and personal life may remain stuck behind walls.

In 2022 and 2023, Jail Time Records moved from prison project to exportable model

Jail Time Records released Jail Time Vol 1 in 2022. According to the BBC, half the profit from album sales went to the artists, while the rest was reinvested into the label. That is one of the most concrete signs that the project is not only therapeutic. It has a revenue model.

The same year, Jeje, described as Jail Time Records’ first female artist, debuted with the Afrobeats song Show Me The Way. She was jailed after stealing money and running away from an allegedly abusive uncle.

“Nobody show me the way, nobody show me the way, I did it all alone,” Jeje sings.

In 2023, Roach and Happi expanded the project outside Cameroon, setting up a studio 1,000 miles (1,600km) away in the central prison of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso’s capital.

That expansion is the clearest sign that Jail Time Records is being tested as a repeatable prison arts model. The original New Bell project now includes a label, music videos, a public-facing artist roster, and an award-winning documentary. That is far beyond a workshop.

For readers following XOOMAR’s broader coverage of how justice systems handle visibility, accountability, and punishment, this story sits near other global legal flashpoints such as Last Isla Bell Death Charge Survives Ganiev's Fight and South Korea Ant Dessert Could Put Michelin Owner in Jail. The common thread is not the facts of the cases, which are separate, but the public pressure created when legal systems become cultural stories.

Prison officials, inmates, fans, and rights advocates are hearing different songs

The prison authorities appear to support Jail Time Records. Happi told the BBC they were “really welcoming of the project,” adding that Cameroon is “a super musical country” and that the prison head attended this year’s concert and danced with performers.

For inmates, the label offers dignity, voice, and a route to being remembered outside New Bell. For prison officials, it can signal discipline and rehabilitation. For fans, it offers raw music from people usually seen through crime reports. For rights advocates, the same footage may raise harder questions about overcrowding, violence, consent, and whether publicity softens the image of a prison still defined by harsh conditions.

Roach directly addressed the concern that the project could glorify prisoners who committed violent crimes.

“The process we're doing is a rehabilitation process, basically,” she told the BBC. “We enter the prison without any judgment and it's the only way we can really approach this kind of work.”

Taika Waititi, who executive produced the documentary with Rita Ora, framed it around art and redemption.

“I think having an outlet is an incredibly powerful and humane thing,” he said.

XOOMAR analysis: both views can be true. The music can be humane, and the institution can still demand scrutiny.

The next test is not another viral video, it is life after New Bell

Jail Time Records has already achieved what most prison arts programs never do: public distribution, recognizable artists, revenue sharing, international attention, and festival recognition. The risk is that those wins become the story, while New Bell’s overcrowding, sanitation failures, and violence fade into background texture.

Music alone can’t reform a prison system. It can, however, force the public to see prisoners as people with voices, families, skill, ambition, and futures.

The next evidence to watch is practical. Do released artists keep access to studios, managers, income, and audiences? Are revenue terms transparent enough to protect inmates? Does the Ouagadougou expansion copy the creative opportunity without copying the blind spots? Do prison authorities treat music as a path to rehabilitation, or as a polished showcase?

The real success test for Jail Time Records won’t be the next YouTube milestone. It will be whether artists can leave New Bell with freedom, income, and a public that still listens.

Why It Matters

• Jail Time Records is drawing global attention to life inside one of Cameroon’s most overcrowded prisons.
• The label gives inmates a public voice while raising questions about visibility, power and monetization behind bars.
• The Tribeca wins could turn a local prison music project into a broader human rights and cultural story.