BL Shirelle, Simply Naomi, and Ron Jenkins, “Gospel, Rap, and Social Justice” (2022)

“Formerly incarcerated musicians and activists collaborate with Yale students to explore the contemporary relevance of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Featuring rap/poet BL Shirelle and Gospel singer Simply Naomi of Die Jim Crow Records.”   —YouTube

“The performance represented the culmination of Ronald Jenkins’ class, ‘Gospel, Rap, and Social Justice: Prison and the Arts,’ a course that uses Dante’s Divine Comedy to explore the “parallels between Dante’s journey out of hell and the life journeys of men and women impacted by the justice system.

“Students worked with formerly incarcerated individuals to transform their stories into theatrical monologues, connect them to music, and structure them in a theatrical piece that interweaved the stories, music and Dante’s Divine Comedy together.”   –Tobias Liu, “Formerly incarcerated individuals collaborate with Yale students in musical performance project,” Yale Daily News (December 5, 2022)