DIE JIM CROW RECORDS IS THE FIRST RECORD LABEL IN THE UNITED STATES FOR PRISON-IMPACTED MUSICIANS. OUR MISSION IS TO DISMANTLE STEREOTYPES AROUND RACE AND PRISON IN AMERICA BY AMPLIFYING THE VOICES OF OUR ARTISTS.
(L-R) Fury Young, Anthony “Big Ant” McKinney, and Mark Springer. Photo: Catherine Roma
The first DJC sessions in a prison. Warren Correctional Institution (Ohio, 2015) with the UMOJA Choir.
Photo: Catherine Roma
First, it was a concept album.
Die Jim Crow Records began as an idea to basically make the greatest concept album of all time. In 2013, inspired by Michelle Alexander’s landmark book The New Jim Crow and Pink Floyd’s rock opera The Wall, artist/activist Fury Young embarked on the quixotic journey to make an epic double album about racial injustice in the U.S. prison system.
The initial idea was to work with formerly and currently incarcerated black musicians to form a collective narrative that spanned pre-prison, prison, and reentry. Though Young, who identifies as a “New York Jew,” had never been incarcerated or produced a single song before, his personal experiences with friends who had been to prison led to him pioneering the project with a ceaseless conviction.
For six years, while working full time as a carpenter, Young pursued DJC as a passion project and had the diligence to gain access to prisons across the country for recordings. During this time he built close relationships with several musicians and writers both in and once-in of the system.
Then, a record label.
In March 2019, after a trip down south in which Young and co-producer/engineer dr. Israel recorded 25 new collaborators in three prisons, it became clear that Die Jim Crow was no longer an LP project but a record label. With dozens of unreleased recordings that would not fit on one album, and so many inspiring voices that demanded to be heard, Young approached the Die Jim Crow board of directors with the idea of this record label evolution. With unanimous consent, the focus of DJC shifted from concept album to record label.
Though still centered on the Black experience, DJC has become a diverse and inclusive organization, representing the wide range and creative perspectives of marginalized people impacted by prison, such as LGBTQIA+, immigrants, indigenous people, women, poor whites, and people of color etc.
In 2020 Die Jim Crow Records officially launched as the nation’s first non-profit record label for formerly and currently incarcerated musicians. DJC's first two full length albums were released to critical acclaim with features in the Los Angeles Times, BBC, Pitchfork, Grammys, Washington Post, Colorado Public Radio, Westword, Philadelphia Inquirer, Oxygen, WNYC's The Takeaway, Interview Magazine, Arte TV France, The Atlantic, SF Bay View and Passion of Weiss, among others.
During the peak of the COVID pandemic in 2020, DJC raised $25K and sent over 30K masks to prisons and jails in 19 states with their PPE Into Prisons initiative. The following year they joined forces with the Union of Musicians & Allied Workers and began an Instruments Into Prisons drive; now an ongoing campaign which sent over $9K worth of gear in its first eight months.
Bridging the divide between incarcerated artists and artists in the free world, DJC Records works as a radical creative collective, agency for social change, and overall art power house. With a Co-Director model of Fury Young and longtime DJC artist/administrator BL Shirelle — who Young met in 2015 while she was still in prison — Die Jim Crow lives up to its VAlues of consistency and representation, embodying the revolutionary change they seek to create in the world.
“The beauty of Die Jim Crow is that people behind bars are making music to educate and liberate. I’m thrilled that my work has helped to inspire this effort…”
— Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow