7.24.2025
Netflix Debuts Trailer For
SONGS FROM THE HOLE
Watch HERE
Directed by Contessa Gayles
Songs Written and Performed by JJ’88
Coming to Netflix on August 13th
JJ’88 Shares “Here Now” From
Songs From The Hole EP
WINNER — SXSW, Audience Award: Visions, 2024
WINNER — Cinema Eye Honors: Heterodox Award, 2025
WINNER — BlackStar Film Festival, Jury Prize: Best Feature Documentary, 2024
WINNER — Newark Black Film Festival, Jury Prize: Spirit of Paul Robeson Award, 2024
WINNER — Indie Street Film Festival, Jury Prize: Best Feature Documentary, 2024
WINNER — Fist Up Film Festival, Jury Prize: Best Feature Documentary, 2024
WINNER — Sing Sing Film Festival, Jury Prize: Excellence in Criminal Justice Storytelling, 2024
WINNER — Buffalo International Film Festival, Audience Award: Best Feature Documentary, 2024
WINNER — Urbanworld Film Festival, Audience Award: Best Feature, 2024
WINNER — St. Louis Film Festival, Audience Award: Best Feature Documentary, 2024
WINNER — New Orleans Film Festival, Audience Award: Best Feature Documentary, 2024
At 15, he took a life. Three days later, his brother’s life was taken. A moving chronicle of forgiveness, family, and the transformative power of art, SONGS FROM THE HOLE weaves music and mixed-media storytelling into an innovative documentary visual album.
Through clear-eyed narration and lyrical journal entries, incarcerated musician James “JJ’88” Jacobs reveals his innermost struggles as a person who has both committed and experienced violent harm. While serving a double-life prison sentence, he searches for healing and peace as he comes of age in this documentary-musical odyssey composed behind bars.
In a unique creative process director Contessa Gayles (The Feminist on Cellblock Y, Founder Girls, The Debutantes) collaborated with protagonist/writer JJ’88 and producer/music producer richie reseda to interweave the collective storytelling of the film’s non-fiction participants, with imagined memories, dreams and spiritual dialogues set to JJ’88’s original music. The result is a powerful mix of truth-telling and dreaming that reveal the potential for healing and liberation within us all.
Director: Contessa Gayles
Songs Written and Performed by: JJ’88
Writers: JJ’88, Contessa Gayles
Producers: Contessa Gayles, richie reseda, David Felix Sutcliffe
Co-Producer: JJ’88
Executive Producers: Jenny Raskin, Lauren Haber, Geralyn White Dreyfous, Regina K. Scully, Meadow Fund, dream hampton
Production Companies: Cocomotion Pictures and Question Culture
Download Stills HERE
Read more at TUDUM
Visit the official Songs From The Hole website HERE
Follow Songs From The Hole on Instagram
Earlier in the week, JJ’88 shared the lead single from the film’s accompanying Songs from the Hole EP release, titled “Here Now.” A smooth, introspective cut, the new single finds 88 waxing poetic atop breezy boom-bap production, courtesy of Tariq and Garfield Bright of Twiin Towers. “I was reflecting on my journey when I wrote ‘Here Now,'” says 88. “I was in the Santa Cruz redwood forests, a few miles from the prison where I made “Songs from the Hole”. It’s a declaration of my arrival to the free world and my music dreams.”
The Songs from the Hole EP is a 13 track melodic testament to survival and transformation releasing alongside the Netflix Original Film of the same title on August 13, 2025.
Originally written and recorded by JJ’88 in prison while serving a life sentence that began at age 15, it was later reproduced by richie reseda, Dylan Wiggins and Tairiq Bright & Garfield Bright III of Twiin Towers, keeping the original prison vocals. The EP is executive produced by richie reseda, JJ’88 and Rahael Asfaw for Question Culture. Gritty and vulnerable, the EP is a real-life hood-healing story—one that can only be told by someone who lived it.
Stream “Here Now”: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jj88/here-now
Pre-save the Songs from the Hole EP here: http://www.questionculture.shop/
Follow JJ’88 on Instagram
“Here Now” single artwork
Songs From The Hole EP artwork
Press Contacts:
Alex Drapac, Netflix
Cheyenne Beam, Audible Treats
Kevin Grossi, Audible Treats
Michelle McDevitt, Audible Treats