Tory Lanez has released new music from behind bars — but they aren’t your typical prison songs.
On Friday (July 26), the incarcerated rapper kickstarted his recently announced Prison Tapes series by dropping two new tracks, “Cell 245” and “Wish I Never Met You.”
The former opens with an automated message from a prison phone call and finds Tory reflecting on his past adversity and the spoils of his success over a hard-hitting beat.
“Shootouts gave me PTSD, that’s the damage that it did / I’m talking hammers at the crib, I’m talking hammers at my grandma’s house / She in the kitchen cooking, finding hammers in the counters, real steppa,” he raps.
The latter, which begins with the same audio recording, showcases Lanez’s softer side as he sings about becoming entangled in a toxic relationship over an Afrobeats-flavored instrumental.
“I can’t lie, I just wish I’d never met you in the first place / Damn, why you had to come and kiss me in the first place? / Damn, why we had to even mix it in the first place? / Damn, then wе went ahead and slid into third base / And I wish I’d nеver ever met you in the first place,” he sings on the hook.
However, it wasn’t the lyrics or the production that caught fans’ attention, but the sound quality of the songs considering they were recorded behind prison walls.
“Tory Lanez really got some crazy quality on this song. You dead can’t even tell he did this over a prison phone,” one impressed listener wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Another said: “How is Tory lanez song quality this good from jail[.] he wasn’t lying he cracked the code,” while a third fan joked: “They gave Tory Lanez a whole studio.”
When announcing his Prison Tapes series earlier this week, Tory claimed to have “cracked the code” when it comes to attaining a studio-level sound from behind bars.
“After about 20-something to 30-something fuck-ups and mistakes, me and my engineer have finally figure out how to record music over the jail phone and still keep the quality as professional as I had it on the street,” he said in a recorded call posted on Instagram.
“It’s over. I done cracked the fucking code, man. This means that not even these prison walls can stop me from dropping new music. It’s crazy!”
He added: “That being said, I’m about to start dropping hot heaps of coal on y’all head top. I’m dropping the all new ‘Free Tory’ playlist — it’s gon’ be updated every week with new music that I’m recording from prison in real time.
“This is the first of its kind and although God has already shown me that this moment is only temporary, it speaks testimony to the fact that no matter where they put me they can’t lock down my spirit, my ambition, my soul my passion nor my destiny!”
Tory Lanez is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence after being found guilty of shooting Megan Thee Stallion during a drunken dispute in July 2020.
He has repeatedly maintained his innocence and recently filed a second appeal of his sentence.
