Rapper Jelly Roll made a visit to the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem on Monday, giving inmates a live performance in the prison yard.
The 39-year-old musician said in a Facebook post his brother told him about a trip he was taking to the prison a few months ago and they discussed the possibility of the rapper joining him on the next trip.
Jelly Roll was able to do so after a Sunday performance in Portland for his “Beautifully Broken” tour.
“It felt so good bringing a little light to such a dark place,” he wrote in his post.
He added that he and his brother felt “blessed” to be able to perform there, and alluded to his own history with incarceration. At 16, Jelly Roll, whose given name is Jason Bradley DeFord, was arrested for aggravated robbery and charged as an adult in Tennessee. He faced a potential 20-year sentence, but ended up serving just more than a year.
“It felt good to go love on these guys. I remember being in a dark place and no one ever coming through and showing us any hope of changing the path of our lives, if one inmate was inspired to do better by my presence yesterday it was worth my weight in gold to stop by and sing,” he wrote.