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Mac Phipps Dale Edwin Murray for NPR
The vote was unanimous. In a remote hearing held late in February, the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole recommended clemency for New Orleans rapper Mac Phipps.
In our first season,
Louder Than A Riot reported on Mac s rise and fall, from breakout star on Master P s No Limit Records to convicted felon for a crime he says he didn t commit. Now, after 21 years in prison and one denied appeal after another, Mac has been granted a new hearing that could mean early almost immediate release. But what does justice look like when you ve already spent half your life incarcerated?
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Mac Phipps. Dale Edwin Murray for NPR
The performance at Club Mercedes was supposed to be just another gig for Mac Phipps, the No Limit rapper whose star was rising in Southern hip-hop around the turn of the new millennium. But it would be the last club date he d perform for at least two decades.
When we last heard from Mac in the previous episode, he was being interrogated by St. Tammany Sheriff s officers for a fatal shooting that occurred on the Club Mercedes dance floor.
Now, as the artist stands trial for the murder of Barron Victor Jr., prosecutors manipulate his lyrics in court to help ensure a guilty verdict.
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Noname. Dale Edwin Murray for NPR
Earlier this year, Yo Gotti s DMs were blowing up: video after video from inside a massive prison complex just across the state line from where the Memphis rapper grew up. The men incarcerated at Mississippi State Penitentiary, also known as Parchman, were at a breaking point, capturing squalid conditions on contraband cell phones and uploading them to social media. Gotti was appalled by what he saw: black mold crawling up the walls, human waste in the corners of cells that hadn t been unlocked in days, men wrapped in blankets to stave off the cold.
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