For some, it’s a weeklong bonanza; others keep it on the down-low. Whether you’re in prison or not, how you celebrate your birthday says a lot about who you are.
The New Official Ear Hustle Birthday Song was written by Tam Nguyen, with variations on the theme by Tam Nguyen, Earlonne Woods, Derrell Sadiq Davis, Bruce Wallace, and Antwan Williams, plus trumpet playing by Brian Conroy.
Big thanks to Warden Andes and Lt. Berry at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center; Acting Warden Parker, Associate Warden Lewis, and Lt. Newborg at the California Institution for Women; and Warden De La Cruz and Lt. Williams at the Central California Women’s Facility for their support of the show.
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Ear Hustle
The candy craze that’s sweeping the prison. What happens when your cellie dies? An update to our continuing coverage on jeans. And, why some people like sharing a cell. Four stories from our inside te...
Cat Schuknecht, Ear Hustle’s Senior Producer at the California Institution for Women, listens back to our 2023 episode “12 Hours on the Yard.” Inspired by the classic This American Life episode “24 Ho...
Tam has been in prison for two decades, and is facing a third. But now, there’s a small chance a judge could send him home, time served. For one month, we follow Ear Hustle’s inside producer as he pre...
Recently, Earlonne was drafted for a mysterious task: to pose for a photo with Nigel — wearing Minnie Mouse ears — while waving a fake “churro” in the air. (Earlonne, always a good sport, didn’t ask t...
For the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, Rahsaan revisits “Cracked Windshield,” an episode we did for the first anniversary. The Ear Hustle team and friends talk about their first interacti...
Women serving serious time for having killed someone while driving drunk form a distinct culture in prison, and often struggle to fit in. We visit two California prisons to meet women who are still gr...
It’s our first-ever listener-inspired “mystery” episode! This time, Nigel's in the dark — and Earlonne has a new co-host. They hope you enjoy this cutting-edge, occasionally unruly Ear Hustle episode...
Listeners had a lot to say about two recent episodes featuring residents of California’s death row, especially “Different Sides of the Earth,” which focused on condemned women. “It was hard to hear th...
Twenty women are currently serving a death sentence at the Central California Women’s Facility. Like the men we met at San Quentin in our previous episode, these women are now living with the mainline...
San Quentin's death row has been cleared out; soon it'll be renovated into an honor dorm. We make one last visit with four men who, between them, spent over 130 years on the row. We see the solitary c...
For some, it’s a weeklong bonanza; others keep it on the down-low. Whether you’re in prison or not, how you celebrate your birthday says a lot about who you are.The New Official Ear Hustle Birthday So...
Spark Plug wanted a life straight out of a Hollywood movie: Live fast and die a legend. But that’s not quite how things worked out. This episode was scored with music by David Jassy, Earlonne Woods, A...
The Ear Hustle team has been hard at work on a whole batch of new stories from San Quentin, the California Institution for Women, the Central California Women’s Facility, and beyond. They’ll be in you...
Next up in our “sleeper hits” series, our editor Amy listens back to “Camp Grace,” a 2021 episode that she had started producing until she was sidelined by COVID. In it, we follow a group of kids to S...
California relies on incarcerated firefighters to fight fires like the ones that have engulfed Southern California this month. But once these men and women are released from prison, they can have a ha...
In the next installment in our “sleeper hits” series, Earlonne listens back to the episode “August 21, 1971,” about George Jackson and one of the most significant days in San Quentin’s history. E talk...
Linda’s mom brought her to a Catholic Mass because she had a sense her daughter was on the verge of something, and needed help. Thirty-seven years into her prison sentence, Linda wonders what would ha...
Leisha didn't plan on getting pregnant. And she certainly didn't plan on giving birth in prison. But on the day those two red lines showed up, Leisha found kindness in an unexpected place.Thanks to Ka...
Earlonne’s here with his “mystery” episode, and it’s a doozy. He tells Nigel a redemption story wrapped in a drug-trafficking story, and, along the way, dives deep into several subjects we swore we’d...
Over the past two episodes we’ve been hearing about “memory places” at San Quentin: ordinary-seeming spots that become extraordinary through the eyes of people who spent time there. In this extra mini...
In the second part of this two-part series, Nigel reveals to Earlonne the final stops in her memory-tour of San Quentin, culminating in an exploration of the prison’s former death row. Thanks to Shaka...
Nigel — with help from our team inside San Quentin — has been cooking up an episode that her co-host knows nothing about. Without giving too much away, we can tell you that it involves visiting a part...
Incarcerated people in California can’t vote, but that doesn't mean they aren’t tracking electoral politics as closely as many of us on the outside are. In this episode, Ear Hustle’s inside team revea...
Wali was on his way to make a life-altering decision when a book made him reconsider. Shaka’s 40 years on death row were shaped by three books picked out for him by a prison librarian. At three Califo...
It can be hard to admit, but some people are more comfortable inside prison than out. We meet people who keep coming back and people who’ve stopped trying to go home, and ask: Is being “OK” inside pri...
The countdown is on! Earlonne and Nigel give listeners a taste of what’s in store this season: some controversy, some mystery, and (maybe) some laughter. The new season starts September 4. Ear Hustle...
Our team inside San Quentin explores the complicated acts of crying and Hula dancing in prison, reports on the joys and sorrows of a new prison clothing policy, pilots a new podcast, and sits down in...
Celebrating our 100th episode last year got the Ear Hustle team thinking about all the stories we’ve told since 2017. Over the next few months, EHers will talk about and listen to some of their favori...
In this collaboration with the venerable live-storytelling project The Moth, we share one man’s story about using a medical condition to break the isolation of his life in prison, and Earlonne and Nig...
We’re introducing you to one of our favorite recent podcast discoveries. In 1997, a racially motivated attack and its aftermath roiled Chicago. “You Didn’t See Nothin” is a seven-part series that revi...