Is not life in America, particularly while wearing the darker-shaded skin, enough pressure as is? Must we hide our diamonds in the proverbial rough for the consumption and enrichment of a select few bourgeoisie beneficiaries? The spark that illuminated a path of freedom fighting was, for me, a simple window into the precious humanity of a man living inside of a cage. It is true that diamonds are produced from pressure, yet it is also true that to mine them requires immense difficulty, and most people will never own or know the beauty of a diamond. And not only James Moosa, and Julius, and Iceface, and Suavelle, and Mumia, and George Jackson and Huey and Angela and so many other brothers and sisters have shown me, from behind iron walls, the true power of humanity and the transcendent potential of the mind and spirit. His resilience and optimism in the face of soul-crushing oppression have often given me perspective and light in my frequent moments of darkness. As our relationship developed over a jail phone, my conversations with James began to be a form of therapy for me, and he a source of strength and counsel in my life as I may have hoped to be in his. Although we were never particularly close when he was in the world, we were part of the same clique, and for that reason, I felt called to help in any way I could - be it friendship, hiring legal counsel, helping to bring awareness, etc. My journey fighting for incarcerated individuals’ freedom began in earnest when my friend James Warren got locked up a few years ago and eventually sentenced to 15 years. home from an Illinois prison 12 years early on a 25-year sentence, implemented when he was just 14 years old.
Icefaces hire free#
Sometime in the early summer or late spring of 2020, I learned that Julius had been signing his outgoing letters from Death Row with “Theme Music We Could Be Free by Vic Mensa.” Around this same time, I had recently been a part of helping to bring a friend named Brian “Moosa” Harrington Jr.
Julius and I have been in communication for almost a year now, and more so over the past few weeks as I geared up to release a song called “SHELTER,” inspired by our relationship, in which I address him by name – – as well as mass incarceration as a construct, and reality for so many in our broken union. The familiar sound greeted my groggy morning mind this AM as I scrolled through my Instagram in the back of an Uber on the way to the airport. “This is a collect call from Julius Jones, an inmate in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.”
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