Fury Young

Co-Executive Director & Founder (he/him)

Fury Young is the founder and Co-Executive Director of FREER Records, the first non-profit record label for currently and formerly incarcerated artists in United States history.

FREER Records began as Young’s idea for a musical concept album titled Die Jim Crow. 

In 2013, Young was inspired by his participation in Occupy Wall Street and the personal experiences of his close friend, ALEXANDER PRIDGEN — a Black Muslim who had been Muhammed Ali's bodyguard and served time. He began reading Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow while on a Pink Floyd The Wall listening kick, and halfway through the book, Young got the idea to make a concept album about racial injustice in the US prison system.

In 2014, Young gained access to record music in Ohio’s Warren Correctional Institution, and from these sessions the DIE JIM CROW EP was born. Released to critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, the urgent, raw sound of the musicians expressing themselves on this record would ignite Young, and set him on a journey to record in prisons throughout America.

For the next five years, while working as a film set carpenter to support DJC, Young recorded in prisons across the country and with returned citizens, as well as with professional musicians and producers in the free world. In March 2019, after recording twenty-five new artists in three prisons on a trip to the American South, Young felt Die Jim Crow needed to expand into a non-profit record label.

With Young’s tireless work ethic, FREER Records (fka Die Jim Crow Records) gained access to five prisons and recorded full bands, choirs, and solo musicians, totaling over 60 incarcerated artists and over a dozen formerly incarcerated artists. 

Young’s first full length album for FREER Records as producer/art director, Territorial’s “Tlaxihuiqui”, was called “one of the most powerful listening experiences of [2021]” by Undrcurrents. As Co-Executive Director of FR, Young leads the label’s creative direction and operations, while sharing programming duties with his Co-ED, BL Shirelle.

In December 2023, Die Jim Crow celebrated its 10 year anniversary with a documentary film directed by Young, titled, “DJCX: How We Got FREER.” This movie captures the inspiring journey of the label, and its evolution into today’s FREER Records.

Young brings his unique creative style to FREER Records’ projects, directing music videos for Territorial, The Masses, EL BENTLY 448, B. Alexis and Lifers Groove, as well as Executive Producing albums.

Young began releasing his solo music in October 2023.