It’s been six years since Jail Time Records, the collective and non-profit record label based out of New Bell Prison in Douala, Cameroon, was founded by artist, filmmaker and teacher Dione Roach. At the time, Roach had been working with an Italian NGO, Centro Orientamento Educativo, visiting the prison and setting up creative workshops, which ultimately led to the label’s inception and the run of music and videos that made its way out of the prison walls.
The latest comes from Lala Badman, an inmate serving a sentence for possession of weed in La Base, a section of the prison housing inmates who are responsible for the internal security of the prison.
His contribution to the label, which also has a fully equipped recording studio in the prison, is “Ijo Kolokolo”, an intense take on Amapiano that’s constantly on the verge of boiling point. The track was inspired, as Lala himself explains below, by some of his fellow inmates and it comes with a video shot right there in La Base.
“I was arrested while I was smoking some weed in my compound,” he shares, “that’s how I got sent to prison. While I was there one day I saw people dancing crazily. They really looked as if they were under the spell of drugs, that’s how I got the inspiration of this song. Kolokolo in Nigeria means someone that has lost it, so the song is about dancing like a madman, it’s a joyful dance.”
Hit play on the video at the top and then be sure to add “Ijo Kolokolo” to all your playlists.
