EAR HUSTLE BRINGS YOU THE DAILY REALITIES OF LIFE INSIDE PRISON SHARED BY THOSE LIVING IT, AND STORIES FROM THE OUTSIDE, POST-INCARCERATION.

Ear Hustle launched in 2017 as the first podcast created and produced in prison, featuring stories of the daily realities of life inside California’s San Quentin State Prison, shared by those living it. Co-founded by Bay Area artist Nigel Poor alongside Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams — who were incarcerated at the time — the podcast now tells stories from inside prison and from the outside, post-incarceration. In 2019, Rahsaan “New York” Thomas joined Ear Hustle as a co-host inside San Quentin. 

In 2020, Ear Hustle was named a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting — the first time the category was recognized — for bringing audiences “a consistently surprising and beautifully crafted series on life behind bars.” In 2021, Ear Hustle received an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for “shatter[ing] the myths about serving time and what happens afterwards.” Ear Hustle has also received honors from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, the Moran Center for Youth Advocacy, and is a two-time Peabody Award nominee. 

Earlonne and Nigel have delivered commencement addresses for the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Bennington College, a keynote at Podcast Movement, and have discussed their work at the City Arts & Lectures and Commonwealth Club series in San Francisco, and at the Tribeca Festival in New York. In addition, Ear Hustle has also inspired multiple creative endeavors, including the Metropolitan Museum of Arts’ “Songs from the Spirit” dance performance featuring music from the podcast.

Earlonne and Nigel are also the authors of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life, a book inspired by the podcast and published by Crown/Random House. The San Francisco Public Library selected the title for its One City One Book citywide community reading program in 2022.

Ear Hustle is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary podcasts. Ear Hustle won Radiotopia’s first Podquest in 2016 — a search for new story-driven podcast ideas — beating out more than 1,500 international entries. Today, episodes have been downloaded nearly 60 million times. The show is also broadcast to incarcerated communities, including in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation institutions and in the U.K. in collaboration with the Prison Radio Association.

The Ear Hustle team works in San Quentin’s media lab and from offices on the outside in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can also find the team on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Nigel Poor is a visual artist whose work explores the various ways people make a mark and leave behind evidence of their existence. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and can be found in various museum collections including the SFMOMA, the M.H. deYoung Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. She is also a professor of photography at California State University, Sacramento. In 2011, Nigel got involved with San Quentin State Prison as a volunteer teacher for Mount Tamalpais College (formerly the Prison University Project). She is also the co-author of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life (Crown Publishing).

Earlonne Woods was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. In 1997, he was sentenced to 31-years-to-life in prison. While incarcerated, he received his GED, attended Coastline Community College and completed many vocational trade programs. He also founded CHOOSE1, which aims to repeal the California Three Strikes Law, the statute under which he was sentenced. In November 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown commuted Earlonne’s sentence after 21 years of incarceration. Upon his release, Earlonne was hired by PRX as a full-time producer for Ear Hustle, and he continues to work with Nigel, contributing stories about re-entry. He is also the co-author of This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life (Crown Publishing).

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