Huge week for the Jelly Roll diehards out there\u2014your favorite Christian country rapper was just granted a full pardon by Tennessee governor Bill Lee. With around 40 stints in jail\u2014the most serious being for a robbery at age 17 and drug charges at 23\u2014the rapper-turned-singer legally named Jason Deford has, as he tells it, had difficulty traveling internationally for concert tours and \u201cChristian missionary work\u201d due to all the burdensome felony-related paperwork. Deford doesn\u2019t have to worry about that anymore, as Lee granted him an official pardon yesterday and even invited the musician to his mansion for celebratory photo-ops and handshakes. <\/p>\n
Jelly Roll had long since served his time (and Tennessee\u2019s pardons are \u201cstatements of forgiveness\u201d rather than get-out-of-jail-free cards, anyways), so the major boons from the pardon will be the restoration of voting rights and, of course, a far easier time getting through TSA\u2014arguably the most tangible miracle of all. But in all honesty, the pardon feels less like a radical act of mercy than a carefully staged morality play, complete with a repentant sinner, a conservative governor, and a camera-ready redemption arc.<\/p>\n
For whatever it\u2019s worth, it does sound like Jelly Roll has genuinely turned over a new leaf, and has been working towards a better life for years\u2014he\u2019s testified before the U.S. Senate about the dangers of fentanyl, earned the trust and support of his parole board, and seemingly found God or something (again: \u201cChristian missionary work\u201d). As he put it<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m looking to take my message of redemption through the power of music and faith through the rest of the world.\u201d And that\u2019s great! Good for Jelly Roll! <\/p>\n It is hard, though, not to eye pardons like these with some degree of cynicism. Pardons are good, sure, but they\u2019re also extremely convenient displays of goodness\u2014ones that play especially well in a world where public forgiveness is more readily extended to repentant celebrities than to ordinary people still trying to outrun their records. Therein lies the rub: Tennessee prisons are full of people with fewer charges, less money, and equal or greater evidence of rehabilitation. But those people will never be invited into the governor\u2019s mansion, because they do not come with press coverage, streaming numbers, or testimony that fits neatly into a campaign-friendly narrative. At the end of the day, it\u2019s mostly a PR opportunity: a chance for Governor Lee to sit a Grammy-nominated artist in front of his fireplace and show off some paperwork before the cameras. <\/p>\n