Ani DiFranco to Perform in Prison Reform Livestream

Ani DiFranco, Zoë Boekbinder, Terence Higgins and more will be participating in a prison reform benefit livestream, produced by Live From Out There and Righteous Babe.

Prison Music Project Sessions: Long Time Gone will air as an album release party for the compilation LP of the same name on June 12th at 9:00 p.m. EST via LiveXLive. In addition to performances, the livestream will feature call-in readings from incarcerated poets Spoon Jackson and Samual Brown and filmed performances by incarcerated musicians.

Long Time Gone, released on June 5th, was recorded by the non-profit artist collective the Prison Music Project over the course of 10 years in a collaboration between free artists and incarcerated or formerly incarcerated songwriters. All proceeds from the album’s sales will go toward the Southern Center for Human Rights. Profits from the concert will benefit Sister Hearts Re-Entry Program and the Center for Life Without Parole Studies.

Last month, DiFranco and Boekbinder shared one of the album’s tracks, “Nowhere but Barstow and Prison,” penned by Spoon Jackson. “There are two million people in prison in the U.S. and each one of them has a story to tell. Nine of them are on this record,” DiFranco told Rolling Stone. “The stories and the music on Long Time Gone are diverse in scope and sound, as are the people involved, but we are united in our humanity and in our hope for a more just justice system. In this time of human versus virus, when so many behind bars are sitting ducks, I hope we can address the reality of mass incarceration and fix it.”