This is “Cell Blocks Full of Young, Gifted, and Black,” by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson.
If ever you want to discover a place of boundless treasure, where sisters and brothers can be found with talents beyond measure, all one need do is tear down these walls, walk down these halls, you’ll hear it in their calls.
Lyricists that could twist the best industry artists into knots without effort, while they try their hardest. Poets and writers, painters, prizefighters, Pulitizer prize best sellers compiled on manual typewriters. I’ve seen them, heard them, been stunned into silence.
But these places are written off as cesspools of violence. Some of the best legal minds, literal encyclopedias on cap, the sharpest inventors, guys who have memorized whole maps. I’ve dazzled a few naysayers with my own creation, multiply me by millions that’s what’s inside these plantations. Untapped raw potential, undiscovered genius, but because of razor wire and walls, none of y’all have seen us.
Most are here because of lack of opportunity, lack of developmental resources out in their communities. So they discovered their abilities only after they fell, isolated they flourish, blossoms, like roses grown in cells. In here they found their voices, while out there they were silenced. The average one in here would shut down America’s Got Talent.
So if one want to see ability, come peer inside these cracks. These prisons are facilities overrun by Young, Gifted, and Black.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.