Jay-Z and Yo Gotti file second lawsuit against Mississippi Department of Corrections

Two lawsuits in two months; that’s how the two Roc Nation rappers, Jay-Z and Yo Gotti, are trying to shed light on the deplorable conditions inside Mississippi’s Parchman Prison. At least nine inmates have already died in 2020, allegedly because of health and safety conditions.

Jay-Z and Yo Gotti have filed their class-action lawsuits on behalf of 150 prisoners at Parchman, alleging “barbaric” conditions at the correctional facility. Specifics of these conditions include rat feces and cockroaches in food for the inmates, lack of medical care, and flooded cells.

The lawsuit calls for the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) to address these unsanitary and unsafe living conditions within 90 days. Yo Gotti told CNN that “the game plan is to get change” by holding the MDOC to accountability for not treating the prisoners as human beings and for forcing them to live in inhumane conditions.

Team Roc, which is the philanthropic division of Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation, released shocking and graphic videos of the filth and violence inside Parchman. The videos were filmed by inmates with contraband cellphones and purportedly show “a knife fight between 2 prisoners, gruesome injuries and horrific filth inside a cell,” according to TMZ. The videos also include the testimony of relatives of some of the inmates who died inside Parchman.