Filed
1:00 p.m. EDT
04.05.2026
In his signature trickster fashion, the Vallejo, California, rapper recorded an album on jail telephones — and even referred to as out cops by identify.
This essay is a part of Redemption Songs, a limited-run publication that spotlights one music every week by incarcerated artists. Enroll now to get a brand new music every Sunday afternoon till September:
Police Used Mac Dre’s Music Towards Him. In Jail, He Used the Cellphone to Get Revenge.
Pay attention in the event you like: Too $hort, E-40, Mistah F.A.B., P-Lo
Americans constructed greater than 900 prisons between 1980 and 2004, however the story of mass incarceration can be about what disappeared in these years. As crime rose and politicians fearmongered, jail officers used doubtful proof to shrink teaching programs, together with many centered on music. They stopped letting jail bands do issues like tour underneath armed guard or play in-house rodeos. Prosecutors even used the lyrics individuals wrote in jail towards them at their trials.
However the impulse to make music didn’t disappear. It simply traveled underground and located new retailers.
Enter Mac Dre, who turned his jail telephone right into a microphone.
Born Andre Hicks, Mac Dre discovered success in his early 20s in his hometown of Vallejo, California, in line with a current piece by journalist Jessica Kariisa for KQED. He had offered marijuana as an adolescent and hung out in juvenile lockups. This was the period of “Fuck Tha Police” by N.W.A. and the 1992 Los Angeles riots, sparked by the acquittal of police caught on digicam beating Rodney King.
Like many younger Black males of his technology, Mac Dre grew indignant at police for focusing on and harassing him. In 1992, he launched “Punk Police,” a blistering criticism of the Vallejo Police Division. He included a detective’s actual identify within the lyrics, and taunted the division for failing to unravel current financial institution robberies.
“What’s subsequent?” he rapped. “You gon’ body any individual?”
Right after the music got here out, Vallejo police arrested Mac Dre and his mates for conspiring to rob a financial institution. He maintained his innocence — and the banks in query have been by no means truly robbed. In accordance with police information reviewed by Reveal, Mac Dre was in a motel room whereas his mates drove to a financial institution, however they deserted the theft on the final minute.
Prosecutors claimed Mac Dre was the crime’s ringleader and performed “Punk Police” for the jury. It was an early instance of rap lyrics getting used as proof in courtroom, a phenomenon that has exploded since then.
However it was a bizarre alternative in Mac Dre’s case: Prosecutors often attempt to interpret lyrics as confessions, however Mac Dre merely raps about his innocence: “I’m a dope rhyme vendor, not a cash stealer.”
Nonetheless, the jury convicted Mac Dre of conspiracy, and he went to federal jail for 4 years. The punk band Dangerous Brains had just lately recorded its lead singer over the telephone in a Washington, D.C., jail. Mac Dre’s producer, Khayree Shaheed, took the thought a step additional. In accordance with one other rapper, X-Raided, who was in jail with Mac Dre, Shaheed used soldering instruments to attach a landline telephone immediately right into a studio mixing board.
Mac Dre rapped about being locked up and even referred to as radio exhibits from jail to advertise the songs. There is no such thing as a public proof that he was ever punished for utilizing the telephone this fashion, or that doing so even violated a jail rule. He was launched in 1996, and his star stored climbing till 2004, when he was shot and killed after a present in Kansas Metropolis. His homicide stays formally unsolved.
Wanda Salvatto, mom of rapper Mac Dre who was killed in 2004, holds a framed {photograph} of her son when he was in his late teenagers at her dwelling in Vallejo, California.
Countless different rappers would later use jail telephones to file, together with X-Raided, Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane and the late Drakeo the Ruler. The setting invitations a sure self-seriousness, however Mac Dre brings a lighthearted trickster vitality. On “Again n da Hood,” he thanks the police — once more by identify — for getting him media consideration by his trial: “You place me on the information and tried to unfold that lie. Then file gross sales jumped to an all-time excessive!”
At a technical stage, there is no such thing as a manner across the grainy sound of those telephones. However artists usually use limitations to their benefit. Mac Dre wrote poignant lyrics — about lacking dwelling — figuring out they’d land extra powerfully as a result of he actually sounds so far-off.
LINER NOTES:
Artist: Mac Dre | Tune: “Again n Da Hood” | Album: “Again n Da Hood” | 12 months: 1992 | Location: Fresno County Jail, Fresno, California | Producers: Mac Dre and Khayree
