High-risk inmates usually cannot access any instruments during their sentence. This amenity is considered a privilege and is reserved for model prisoners. Prisoners can buy access to music rooms that have state-provided instruments to record their songs. Generally, many inmates have access to musical instruments, but it comes at a price. How Do Musicians Record In Prison? Access To Musical Instruments In this article, we will answer some of your questions about how recording in prison works and what artists have recorded albums from prison. This is reserved for inmates in high standing and controlled by the prison. However, some prisons have a music room or recording studio where incarcerated musicians can record music during recreational hours. In general, prisons do not allow inmates to record audio or video within the facility. So, can musicians record songs from prison? One minute you hear your favorite musician is incarcerated and the next minute they drop an album from jail. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.When you’ve heard that your favorite musician has been arrested, it can be easy to think you won’t hear new music from them anytime soon. 10 seeking information on Barrow’s contract with the company.Ī spokesperson for Shyne and his record label did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.Ĭopyright 2004 Associated Press. The New York Crime Victims Board sent a letter to Def Jam dated Aug. New York’s Son of Sam law prevents convicts from profiting from their crimes. Flateau said privileges were suspended pending further investigation. Signs in the prison alert inmates that their calls are recorded and may be monitored, Flateau said.īarrow was notified yesterday that his phone privileges and the ability to give face-to-face interviews were being taken away. Prison officials contend Barrow, while in prison, discussed the marketing and promotion of his work with Def Jam. If an investigation shows Barrow was doing business over the phone before his newly released CD, state law would allow victims of his crime to sue for compensation. 11 world, we’d like to know who inmates are talking to.” “If a call is transferred to a cell phone, we have no idea who that call is going to or where that person is,” Flateau said. An investigation indicates Barrow did all of those things and provided phony names on his designated call list, said James Flateau, a state Department of Correctional Services spokesman. Under New York law, prisoners can’t call cell phones, have calls transferred to another party, conduct business over the phone or call reporters not on a designated media list. Shyne’s phone use is what state prison officials are investigating. He signed the lucrative contract with Island Def Jam Records in April, and he even recorded raps for the album over the phone. Combs was also charged in the case but was acquitted.Īlthough Shyne is being held at a correctional facility in remote Dannemora near the New York/Canada border, that hasn’t stopped his recording career. Diddy” Combs has been in jail on weapons charges since 2001 for the 1999 nightclub shooting that involved his former mentor and Combs’ then girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez three bystanders were wounded. The rapper, whose real name is Jamal Barrow, has been in great demand in the media surrounding last week’s release of his Island Def Jam debut, “Godfather … Buried Alive.” Already, MTV has aired a special about him, the New York Times conducted a phone interview and he’s on the cover of the September issue of Vibe, wearing his dark-green prison uniform. He was barred from conducting in-person interviews as authorities investigate whether he may have violated prison rules in making about 100 phone calls. Rapper Shyne, who signed a $3 million record deal and recorded part of his new album while in prison, had his phone privileges revoked yesterday (Aug.