COLUMBUS (WXIX/Gray News) – Jelly Roll made a surprise visit to an Ohio juvenile detention center to “spread the love” to the youth who may need it most.
Teens at the Franklin County Juvenile Detention Center played Spades and other card games with the rap-country and GRAMMY Award-winning artist.
While the group discussed their talents and how they can develop them, they also listened to Jelly Roll’s story as he briefly overviewed his time behind bars starting at a young age.
“When I was 14, I got arrested for the first time, and from 14 to 26, I probably spent 10 years incarcerated. I was bound over and charged [as] an adult when I was 15-and-a-half years old for a robbery case, and um… man, I’m just a product of the system,” he told them.
A Nashville native, the 39-year-old spent much of his youth at the Davidson County Juvenile Detention Center and later, the Metro-Davidson County Detention Facility.
The artist says he remembers sitting in “that seat,” an impressionable boy, as people would visit and “pour love” into him that he didn’t quite understand.
“Staff would pour love into me, but I didn’t really understand them cause obviously we’re on two different sides of the core belief system to some degree, judges would come in, I’d have all these people try and I couldn’t really connect,” he said.
No matter who came to see him, he felt like he was being “preached at,” Jelly Roll explained to the teens.
“So instead of preaching at ya’ll, I’m gonna show you how bad ya’ll suck at Spades,” he said, which sparked a bit of laughter.
This was not the first facility Jelly Roll has visited since becoming famous. He returned to his former jail where he wrote hundreds of songs, and he has traveled to the Genesee County Jail in Michigan and the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem, Oregon.
Despite having a show scheduled to take place in Columbus on that Wednesday, Jelly Roll said he spends a lot of time in the city, and that it claims him as “one of their own.”
“I just knew that if I ever got the chance to make a difference, I was gonna come back… I was gonna come spread love,” he said reflecting on his time in the system.
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