Heads up before we begin. This podcast is explicit in every way.

Back in the spring of 2012, somebody took the time to generate a Gmail account,

username, John Smith, the address, industry confessions at gmail.com.

They composed the message with the subject line, the secret meeting that changed rap music and destroyed the generation.

And on April 24th at 1.30pm, it's sinned.

That unsigned letter claimed to document a secret meeting back in the 1990s that joined two of America's most powerful forces.

The music industry and the prison industrial complex.

It described a closed door meeting with a small group of industry insiders held at a private residence on the outskirts of LA.

Now the right of the letter, he didn't know exactly why he was invited there at first.

But soon after everybody gathered, a man who only introduced himself by his first name started pitching the room.

You might as well as something like this.

I'd like to share a very exciting opportunity with you all.

Your companies have invested millions of dollars into building privately owned prisons.

And your positions of influence in the music industry can actually impact the profitability of these investments.

Now at this point, the writer says everybody in the room looked at each other in confusion.

So it's now in your interest to make sure that these prisons remained filled.

Your job, marketing music that promotes criminal behavior and rap music, that's the music of choice.

From MPR music, this is louder than a riot.

When we traced the collision of rhyme and punishment in America.

In our first episode, we look at the interconnected rise of hip-hop and mass incarceration over the last 40 years.

And we ask, if the conspiracy letter is really fabricated, then where's the lie?

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Margarit Casey Foundation.

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