Music Producer Records Prisoners, Gets Nominated for a Grammy

Ian Brennan is a music producer who has had a passion for music from an early age, and his career has taken him to many unexpected places as a record producer.

Perhaps one of his most fortuitous productions was the Zomba Prison Project in Malawi.

Brennan is not your typical New York or Los-Angeles based music producer. He travels all over the world, recording music in countries and languages that are not well known internationally.

“I started making records when I was a teenager, and I wasn’t very good at it. I made some bad records, but by doing that I learned how to make records,” Brennan explained to Epoch Times.

Brennan has always been interested in independent and non-commercial voices. Learning how to make records made him even more intrigued.

“In the last 10 years my wife and I ... have very actively and deliberately been going out, to the best of our ability, seeking out projects and music in places that are underrepresented,” Brennan said. Delli is responsible for all of the video and photography for the projects.

It’s an intriguing job, but it takes a lot of guts to go out and find music in places people don’t typically associate with music production.

“We’ve been very fortunate. It’s not a very sustainable model because it doesn’t make money, but it’s very gratifying intrinsically,” Brennan said.

One of the many ideas Brennan and Delli had over the years was a prison project. For Brennan, it’s not just about recording music in underrepresented regions, but recording music by people who aren’t being represented, perhaps who are even being persecuted.

Malawi is in southeastern Africa, and is not particularly known for it’s music industry. But it’s places like Malawi that draw Brennan in.

“There’s just so much beautiful music in the world that often isn’t given the exposure that it probably deserves,” Brennan told Epoch Times.

Prisoners are fed once a day, and can go as long as 3 days without being fed at all.

However, the atmosphere is less threatening than one might expect in a maximum security prison.

“The conditions are pretty horrific, but the sense of the place in many cases on an average day is very different than what I’ve known of prisons in America, much less menacing; you know the guards don’t even carry guns,” Brennan explained.

However, there is a prison band, where inmates and guards play music together.

For Brennan, Nyerenda’s song was particularly memorable because of how reluctant Nyerenda was to participate. Nyerenda was also the youngest of the men to sing or play music for the album.

“He was not a songwriter, and he was extremely reluctant, unwilling to write a song. He did it at the last minute.”

“I think the results were lyrically probably the most sophisticated lyrics,” Brennan told Epoch Times.

While the prisoners didn’t entirely understand the concept of the Grammy Awards, it was still an exciting and well-deserved achievement.

One would think that might motivate Brennan to record another album from Zomba Prison, but he doesn’t see it that way.

“We make a point of not doing something unless there’s a real justifiable reason to do it,” Brennan added.

However, when Brennan went back to Zomba Prison with 60 Minutes, he encouraged Officer Thomas Binamo to perform a song while they were there.

Officer Binamo performed a song entitled “I Will Never Never Stop Grieving for You, My Wife.” The track is about his deceased wife.

When Brennan heard that song, he knew there had to be a second record. The second album is entitled “I Will Not Stop Singing.” Where the music will go is unclear to Brennan.

“I don’t know what the future holds. I mean there’s still lots of material, but again I don’t want to be in a position where we’re putting it out for the wrong reasons so to speak.”