Event

Join us at Public Trust for a special screening of Songs from the Hole, an innovative documentary visual album that follows incarcerated musician James “JJ’88” Jacobs through a musical opus of hip-hop and soul, on Tue Nov 12, 2024 from 12-2pm.  Following the screening, there will be a public conversation with director Contessa Gayles and film scholar Julia Alekseyeva. Presented in partnership with the Department of Cinema & Media Studies and the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennsylvania.

At 15, he took a life. Three days later, his brother’s life was taken. A chronicle of forgiveness, family, and the transformative power of art, Songs from the Hole joins music and storytelling in an innovative visual album. Through clear-eyed narration and lyrical journal entries, incarcerated musician James “JJ’88” Jacobs reveals his innermost struggles as a person who has both committed and experienced violent harm. While serving a double-life prison sentence, he searches for healing and peace as he comes of age in this documentary-musical odyssey composed behind bars.

Through a collaborative creative process, director Contessa Gayles, JJ’88, and music producer Richie Reseda interweave the collective storytelling of the film’s non-fiction participants with imagined memories, dreams and spiritual dialogues, all set to JJ’88’s original music.