Tap In: Lessons From Joseph Harp

I would love for you to come through there. If you go to clubreal Ones dot com, you can get like a discount ticket fifty percent off clubrel Ones dot com. Use promo code props pr ops. Come chill with the Day Party crew. It's a lot of hip hop, so just be prepared for that, but a whole lot of R and B and good times and just come chill. It's fun and besides your home by nine, j'all oh last, all right, this tap in is about keeping that same energy that you need to keep and it also has

to do with my rap world. I just got back from Joseph Harp Correctional Institution in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, at an event called music Fest in conjunction with Justice for Julius. Julius Jones was a man wrongfully convicted for murder who was scheduled to be on death row. Was in on death row for twenty years, and my homeboy JB fought alongside the Justice for Julius movement to get his wanting to get him out of jail, but first of all

to get his death row sentence commuted. They succeeded with that, but he is still sitting in jail. At the prison he's at, there is an event called music Fest, which is a three day music festival that's been going on for the fast five years. I've had a chance to be a part of three of those five years, but this might be the end of it because of a new head of security. And there was this moment with

one of these inmates. And this inmate is a man that you would absolutely expect to just be working at a church running sound like he's the most regular, regular looking white boy you'd ever meet. Ever, he said something that makes me want to tap in. What y'all about? He says, I just really hope that prison reform is still something you guys are talking about on the outside. That kind of shook me a little bit taping with me. Okay, So if you have to go to prison, this is

the prison you want to be at. A lot of these men are lifers. There's one young man who is serving two consecutive life sentences, but it was from a charge when he was seventeen. There was a young man that I was actually looking forward to seeing, and I'm gonna change his name right now because it's none of y'all's business. I'm gonna call him Paul. Paul. And another one who I don't mind saying his name is Key Tech, who was a legendary like producer in okac's hip hop

scene running a studio. And him Paul and that regular degular white boy I was talking about. They put together this thing called Music Fest. So it's completely put together by the inmates in conjunction with Live Free OKC, Black Lives Matter OKC, and the Justice for Julius program Org. These are people who work not only for justice for inmates, to see community organizing inside of OKC, but all so specifically for Julius. So in conjunction with that, they work

to reach out to artists. It's a three day thing. They have an amazing sound system. It's like a festival. It's like it feels like coming to a festival. You get emailed, you know with the team. They ask for your tech writer. There are certain things that you can't bring in because it is in fact a prison. But like I said, if you have to be in prison, you want to be in prison. Here there is the closest to the just valuing of these brothers humanity. They're

not overly surveiled. It is still in fact jail, don't get me wrong. But the yard is of course a yard. It's also but it's also you know, it's chapel. It's gym where the brothers got a TV. You know, they could play basketball. We go in there and this when I tell you, it's nothing like this. It's like going to a twenty four hour fitness except for all the security you had to go through to get in there. We're just chilling. We watched Game seven for the OKC

and Denver series. They all get these tablets which was loaded with of course, again you're still in prison, so it's loaded with some like pre selected channels and some musical selections that like, obviously are not going to spark crippin blood wars. But these guys have, relatively speaking, a lot of privileges. Now, granted, there were other men that are there that are don't have those privileges, that are in a little more you know, kind of lockdown situation.

Some of that's for their own good or whatever, but or their own safety, you know. And of course they still have is the white supremacist world that has to get segregated because they choose to believe a thing. There are brothers that I am excited to see every year. It feels like a reunion, one of which is the name I changed to Homie Paul. I was informed that he got moved, and he got moved to a another prison institution that did not have these types of freedoms.

This was supposed to be disciplinary action because apparently he had peanut butter in his cell. Now he's one of the people that greet us that organized this event. And then I come to find out that this was because the new head of security apparently had an issue with him from twenty years ago when he got written up. He asked the guy like what, like, where do you

where's this coming from? Like, what do you know me from He goes, man, you were a troublemaker back in twenty years ago at you know whatever whatever he and he goes. My friend Paul was like, I was in Florida then, so like and then the security guy was like you talking back to me shipped him out. He has been working tirestly to end a lot of these freedoms. He feels as though security, safety and control needs to

be done through power by an iron fist. Some of the other things the Brothers was telling us is that they do these mind game these just manipulation type stuff that just completely unnecessary and intentionally designed to remind them that they are not free. And I even noticed it from the day or from the first moment walking in to get through the metal detectors into security, I used to be greeted very warmly, like there were professionals. There

were still like prison guards, but it was warm. Hey, dude, glad you're doing this for the guys. Just put your laptop right there, blah blah blah blah your name man, Like it was great. This dude was like signing right here, won't even look at us in our eyes. Just a whole other like old school lapd just bully. You guys are like just bullies, like all of us are beneath you. The whole tone. I just saw, like after going their two years, I just saw how their demeanor was so different.

One thing you gotta know about when you when you when you're talking to inmates is they don't really be having a lot of people to talk to. So you got to, like, you gotta be prepared for a lot of stories because they just don't have a lot of time to do small talk often because they only see each other all the time. So whenever there has a new face, these brothers with Takyo year off, so you gotta make sure you get your rest before you before

you go to be very present for him. The stories they were expressing of just really petty, unnecessary, like we're already in prison creating problems and creating problems with guys that are the good ones, if we're gonna use those terms, and even the men that like apparently Key Tech is about to get transferred to another institution too, and I think that is in for the purpose of removing this festival, which is a sense of joy, like a moment for

these guys to just remember that they're humans again, that there is such thing as joy. They're serving their time. You don't have to dehumanize them. I haven't even gotten too the concept of abolition. I'm saying, they already locked up. And the way that they were explaining this thing just it grieved me so much because they would They kept saying, man, they're not even he's not even treating us like we're

a human. Man. Hopefully he'll leave. And that guy that I told you that just seems like a regular, regular dude that you'd meet it at the parent teacher conference. That's just like that guy's kid is in your fourth grade class, just the most regular. He was like, yeah, you know, we've been, you know, doing our homework, doing our research, really trying to understand like what's going on. And he goes, the message we're getting is like those guys are dinosaurs, like they are on their way out.

But what he said at the end of that was, Man, I just hope and pray that people are still talking about this on the outside. You know a lot of times, especially if you move in justice circles or just pay attention on social media, it's about the news coming so fast that you can't keep up. We all know about like Instagram activists that are moving on to the next to borrow Jamie's language, the next Internet main character. But

of justice. You know, you're only caring about it because we talking about it right now, all the black squares that were on twenty twenty when everybody cared about Black Lives matter. Eventually something else happens and it takes over our zeigeist. But then there's the reality of like, yeah, Flint still doesn't have clean water. There's so many things

we have to care about. But that moment reminded me of something that I want to remind you of is that these people are not just Internet topics or what's going on in the news cycle. They are in fact people of people that are hoping and praying that we can keep the same energy. And I know i'm speaking to peace people, especially if you subscribe to anything that

Cool Zone does, y'all care. I also know that it's impossible to care about everything, But I just want to remind you that your advocacy, the things that you do speak up about and push the line on, there are people counting on us and it do work. Just man, when you're posting your watermelons in support for the children of Gaza. Remember, I mean literally, this is somebody's baby and they're kind of counting on us to not lose focus. I don't know, man. It was such a reminder to

me that these ain't just pods. This is somebody's lives. Tap being with