“We created a studio outside because a lot of people were not enjoying having to return to prison to record music. They don’t want to relive that experience, even for a few hours,” explains Steve Happi, the 33-year-old producer of Jail Time Records, a non-profit record label started in New Bell prison in Douala, the largest city in Cameroon.
In December 2021, Happi opened a second studio in the Deido district of Douala, providing a recording facility outside jail for former prisoners like him. “We have people who have really changed because they have the opportunity to record for free,” says Happi, who founded the label in 2019 with an Italian artist and director, Dione Roach.
