Art as Abolition: The Radical Intent Behind ‘Songs from the Hole’

By the time Songs from the Hole hit screens across the country, its impact was already bigger than the film itself. In Oakland, a young man serving time at the Alameda Juvenile Detention Center heard that the person who killed his cousin was being transferred to the same facility. After seeing the film screened there, he walked up to James "JJ’88" Jacobs, the film’s protagonist, and said he no longer wanted revenge. Instead, he had made a decision: to forgive. Effectively ending a cycle of harm before it could begin again. 

That moment, raw and unscripted, was exactly what the filmmakers hoped for. The story of JJ was a heavy one to tell. A 15-year-old who commits murder and is sentenced to life in prison shortly after his own brother is killed. Behind bars, he comes to terms with forgiveness in a way the carceral system tends to erase by design. Songs from the Hole is a film rooted in the belief that storytelling can be a tool for liberation, if you’re intentional about how you tell the story. 

Set largely inside JJ’s mind, the film unfolds through his phone calls from jail with director Contessa Gayles, alongside deeply personal interviews with his family and the soul-piercing music he wrote while in solitary confinement. The result is part visual album, part documentary, part epic. It blurs genres in a way that feels wholly original and has left audiences around the world stunned. 

As a work of Black art, what’s most remarkable isn’t just the story the film tells, it’s how it was made. It’s a production centered on harm reduction, care, and abolitionist values, not only depicting systems of harm but refusing to replicate them in the process. 

“I felt like what was most important to protect is that the film is an actual tool for getting as many people as much freedom as possible, not just being a film about freedom,” said Richie Reseda, who produced the film and music. He also played a pivotal role in bringing JJ’s story forward, having met him while serving time in the same California prison.

That intention showed up in every aspect of production. “All of our extras who played incarcerated people were formerly incarcerated people who were locked up with [us],” Richie said. “Even who we got our craft services from, where we sourced the majority of our wardrobe from was like a Black-owned thrift store in D.C.”

Where many filmmakers might have prioritized a clean narrative arc or wide accessibility, Gayles kept JJ and his family front and center — treating their humanity not as content, but as the foundation of her practice. During JJ’s resentencing process, she briefly considered filming inside the courtroom. But once she realized the judge’s approval would be required, she stepped back. “This could potentially negatively influence things for [JJ],” she said. “I’m not willing to take the chance. We’re going to come up with some other creative ways to capture this and show it on screen without being in the courtroom.”

Instead, the film shows the moment through JJ’s father, nervously waiting by the phone for good news. It’s a scene that carried even more weight because it showed the gut-wrenching toll incarceration takes on families. 

That kind of protection wasn’t a bonus; it was the entire model. JJ spoke openly about what it meant to be respected as a narrator of his own life. “It was protective of me and my family to always check in with us about our story and how much of it we want to tell, what we’re comfortable doing, and what our ideas are about telling the story.”

For Contessa, who spent years working in traditional media, that approach was also a personal and political departure. “I worked at CNN for four years before this. I was very ready, eager, excited to shed that and make something that I didn’t have folks telling me it needed to appeal to X, Y and Z audience,” she said. “I was coming at it like, I’m finally fucking free.”

The choice to center the film for Black and directly impacted people shaped how different audiences received it when it debuted on Netflix in August. “White people watch this movie very differently than our people do,” JJ said. “People of color who are directly impacted feel connected. They feel like, ‘Oh, my story was just told.’ White people who are not impacted very much see this as, like, a story outside of themselves. Like, ‘Oh wow, what a story. Your life is so inspiring.'”

And while the white gaze wasn’t considered during production, the film still resonated globally. “Our international premiere was in Poland,” Richie said. “One of our biggest audiences is in Brazil. The global majority understands this film and sees themselves in it.”

If there was one through line for the entire team, it was this: Songs from the Hole is not trauma porn. 

“We didn’t make a film about Black pain,” said Richie. “We made a film about Black healing.”

That distinction required intention, patience, and a willingness not to cling to a fixed idea of execution. When the quality of early visuals outpaced the sound of the music JJ had recorded in prison, Richie didn’t settle. Live musicians and experienced producers were brought in to enhance the sound without erasing its origin. “We didn’t compromise in that regard,” said Richie, “We just didn’t.”

From who made the film to how the film was made, Songs from the Hole far exceeds the task of telling JJ’88’s story of redemption in a nearly packaged arc. It’s about what happens when people are allowed to transform on their own terms instead of the terms of the system. What happens when we don’t rely on incarceration to make broken families feel whole? When asked what he hopes people take from all of this, JJ doesn’t overcomplicate it. 

“Free the homies,” he said.