I wrote this song while I was in jail for inciting a riot. A particular cop had wanted to get me for a while. Playing in the subway was always a cat and mouse kind of game. This particular time I had a permit. But I also had a large crowd and he thought he could get me if he put out a riot alert. The eleven cops appeared at the scene just as I was all packed up and ready to go home.

First I was transported to booking in a bus with my hands handcuffed behind me. I told them I was hungry, so they placed a cookie on my knee which I could not reach with my mouth.

During my two day stay I was in two different cells plus a truck that transported me and a dozen or so men chained together with the heat turned up so that we were sweating all over each other. Altogether we spent a few hours in that truck. There were no windows so we had no idea where we were being taken. I was the only white man.

I shared the first cell with a proud rapist. Eventually I was given a MacDonalds burger but I was not given the newspaper from the wastebasket outside the cell.

The last cell I was in was a room about fifteen by fifteen feet with bars on two walls. There were maybe a dozen men, different than the ones in the truck, none of them white. At the corner of those two walls, in plain sight of the wardens and anyone who passed by, was a toilet with no seat and no toilet paper. No one used it the whole time I was there. There was one man who claimed to have been there 72 hours. He was in for selling umbrellas. I had purchased umbrellas many times coming out of subways when the rain took me by surprise. A white man in a business suit joined us eventually and then was gone. Most of the others were experienced with the jail system. They helped me use the right language to negotiate with the authorities. A court appointed lawyer spoke with me through the bars. Eventually I was let out to see the judge. The umbrella guy was still there.

The judge looked at the papers, chuckled, and threw it out, time served or whatever. When I got home I called ACLU. They assigned me a lawyer. We filed suit against the city and settled for $12,000. Whatever percentage I received went towards a new mixer for my studio.

I knew about institutionalized racism before this adventure. But I had never experienced such first hand immersion before. Ever since then, it’s been difficult for me to imagine how anyone can think that people of color have the same opportunities as white people. Maybe if I hadn’t had this experience I would understand white supremacy better. I also remember trying to imagine how someone could survive for years in there. Just those two days were Hell.