Redemption Songs is a limited-run newsletter that spotlights one song each week made by people in prison. Spanning almost a century, we’re telling the story of mass incarceration, one song at a time.

The year before he bade the world farewell, Robert Nesta Marley, best known as Bob Marley, gave humanity an anthem of freedom for all oppressed people. What has now been canonized as “redemption song” ...

An animation of a record rotating. An animation of a record rotating. When you love a song, you feel a kinship with the person who made it. “Music is the most humanizing element this country has,” ...