America's prison system has exploded over the last 40 years.

And hip hop has been there, speaking truth to power all day, every day.

Drugs are menacing our society.

Redditors on our streets.

The biggest prison population peacetime in history of the world times, too.

As prisons have been booming, hip hop has, too.

But is this parallel rise a coincidence?

Or is it more complicated than that?

I'm Rodney Carmichael.

I'm Sydney Madden.

And new from MPR Music.

This is louder than a riot.

Where we trace the collision of rhyme and punishment in America.

We're going to investigate this connection.

Do the stories of the culture and the people who live it.

That's a rap group.

Yeah, it's not a game.

Learned about the issues of waiting, present, and animals.

They're reading their lyrics to the jury as a justification for them being guilty.

Trying to live the American dream, being abused by the system, hip hop is talking about what we live.

Because if a riot is the language of the unheard.

Like Dr. King once said, then rap is the definitive soundtrack.

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