G. Dep Performs At “Redemption Songs Live”

G. Dep took the stage at New York City’s Merkin Hall on Wednesday (October 28) for “Redemption Songs Live,” a concert centered on music written in prison. The Harlem rapper made a guest appearance before a crowd of more than 400, according to The Marshall Project.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani opened the night, which also featured musicians who had served time. Rapper Izzy Ali performed “State of Emergency,” which he wrote at Sing Sing. Alfred Roberts sang “Victory,” a song he wrote while in prison in New York.

The Kaufman Music Center program paired songs with news reports about the people who made them and the places where they were written. The Marshall Project and Musicambia, a group that teaches music in prisons, put on the event, which used songs, spoken stories, photographs and film. Blues, soul and rap were all part of the night. Its stories reached from the Jim Crow South to today’s ICE detention centers.

Reporter Maurice Chammah’s work helped shape the night and its look at how music has been made behind bars. The lineup brought him together with Lawrence Bartley, publisher of The Marshall Project Inside, and the Cambia Collective. The band is made up of Musicambia teachers and past students. The venue listed a 7 p.m. start at 129 West 67th Street.

For G. Dep, the appearance came more than two years after AllHipHop reported his release from Fishkill Correctional Facility in April 2024. Born Trevell Coleman, the former Bad Boy Records artist left prison on parole after spending more than a decade behind bars.

He had confessed in 2010 to a 1993 shooting that killed a man. New York Governor Kathy Hochul granted clemency in December 2023, before he was freed the next spring.

His time in custody also included college work: He earned an associate’s degree in liberal arts. At the time of his release, he planned to keep studying and pursue a bachelor’s degree in business.

Musicambia teaches people to play instruments and write their own music at Sing Sing Correctional Facility and other prisons across the country. The venue listed both Musicambia and The Marshall Project as groups that would share the concert’s proceeds.