First WA prison podcast, ‘Concrete Mama,’ launches at penitentiary
It’s 6:40 a.m. at the Washington State Penitentiary. Men are starting to wake up. Certain sounds come alive.
“Man, you hear them toilets flushing up there?” Demar Nelson asks from inside his cell.
In a recorded message, Nelson is asking the question of former cellmate, or “cellie,” Anthony Covert the morning after Covert was released on clemency last June. In the Walla Walla men’s prison, the two forged a bond as close as brothers. Now, overjoyed for Covert but bereft of his companionship, Nelson is reminding the freed man of the world he left behind.
Nelson is also helping to bring that world to others beyond the massive penitentiary’s fortresslike walls. The recording is part of the first episode of the state’s first prison podcast, and one of only a smattering around the country, releasing Monday online at st.news/prisonpodcast and on major platforms including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. The podcast, backed by the state Department of Corrections and produced by Seattle-based company Unincarcerated Productions, is called “Concrete Mama.”
Washington State Penitentiary is located on about 1,200 acres near Walla Walla, It can house up to 2,439 incarcerated men. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times, File)
The evocative name is taken from a renowned book about the penitentiary’s tumultuous days in the 1970s, when, as the podcast teases out in the first episode, a progressive experiment in self-governance among incarcerated men spun out of control. Among the results: violence, faction fighting and a prison motorcycle club populated by biker gang members.
The podcast’s initial eight-episode season will weave in such stories from the prison’s nearly 140-year history.
The team has done tremendous research, much of it by Steven “Red” Edwards, one of the podcast’s five hosts and its historical voice. He dived into the penitentiary’s storied past, under supervision, on a staff computer.
When Edwards has needed to find out more, he has turned to Unincarcerated’s co-founder Vik Chopra and CEO Rachel Kjack, who have donated their time to the podcast. They have tracked down and interviewed key figures, including a retired corrections official assigned to a dodgy mental health ward during the ’70s, the motorcycle club’s onetime head and John McCoy, author of the book “Concrete Mama.”
Vik Chopra, who lives in Los Angeles, joined a Concrete Mama team meeting by Zoom. Once imprisoned at the penitentiary himself, he founded a production company that has donated its time to the project. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)
Edwards has storytelling flair. He sets the stage for later segments on the self-governance experiment by noting the unlikely trio that dreamed it up: a Republican governor, a warden and a psychiatrist with no prison experience.
Here’s how he describes prisons like the penitentiary:
If you ask me, prisons are almost invisible communities existing in rural areas like Walla Walla and are a major employer for the local economy. But they aren’t seen as a part of the town by its residents. They exist as a shadow that looms in the background. Even when the town goes to sleep at night and all you can see are the bright lights of the prison yards on the horizon, we’re still just an afterthought.
Want to know more about this shadow existence, he implicitly asks. He and his co-hosts are going to tell you.
The Department of Corrections is taking something of a risk with this podcast, set in motion by a request from former DOC Secretary Cheryl Strange, now acting secretary of the state Department of Social and Health Services, to launch such a project. Some might object to the agency buying audio equipment for the hosts of “Concrete Mama” — whose crimes collectively include murder, assault, burglary and arson — and giving them a platform to use it.
Steven “Red” Edwards shows off a Concrete Mama media team shirt. A skilled story-teller and researcher, Edwards is the podcast’s historical voice. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)
A few other prison podcasts and radio shows have turned into hits and gotten positive press, most notably Ear Hustle, a Pulitzer Prize finalist launched in 2017 at California’s San Quentin State Prison, now known as San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.
A DOC staffer approached Chopra and Kjack two years ago when the Unincarerated leaders came to the penitentiary for an event celebrating the graduation of people participating in educational programs. Chopra was speaking at the event.
He had been incarcerated at the penitentiary himself in the 2010s while serving five years for drug and identity theft convictions that followed a period of opioid addiction and homelessness. At a work release facility, he met Spencer Oberg. Together, they hatched the idea for a production company that would highlight success stories of people who had been incarcerated. (Oberg has since left Unincarcerated to become a food business executive.)
Chopra had worked in media on the business side before sliding into addiction and crime. Since rebuilding his life, he dreamed of going back to prison to start a media lab. He and Kjack jumped at DOC’s invitation.
They looked to Ear Hustle for inspiration. Like the California podcast, “Concrete Mama” digs into the day-to-day realities of prison life. But the Washington team has also tried to forge its own path.
A board sharing the goals and vision of the “Concrete Mama” podcast is seen at the penitentiary. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)
Chopra said he’s aiming for an “immersive audio journey” that incorporates prison’s sounds, whether it be toilets flushing, staff announcing meals on the PA system or doors opening and closing.
An underlying goal is to humanize people in prison, Chopra said. A host who serves as a narrator, he shares his own prison experience. He hopes listeners will hear that and the experiences of his co-hosts and say: “I’m not that much different from you.”
To that end, Chopra said, much of the focus is on relatable themes, even while the setting adds a unique dimension. The first episode, provided in advance to The Seattle Times, revolves around prison relationships and the bittersweet way they fracture when someone is released.
Three months after clemency allowed Covert to leave the penitentiary, he sat outside Penrose Library on the Walla Walla campus of Whitman College on a warm September evening. He looked out on a sprawling lawn and a horse sculpture by a famous artist, and contemplated his contrasting fate with that of his podcast cohorts and friends.
“What makes it hard is knowing that them guys are still in there,” he said.
Anthony Covert, seen here at Whitman College, was released on clemency last year. He was determined to keep working on the podcast and has been recording his readjustment to society after serving 15 years... (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)
Were it not for the governor’s intervention, Covert would be with them for a good long while. At 18, he shot at two men in a Spokane motel parking lot during a fight in 2008, injuring one of the men with wounds to his arms and stomach. He was sentenced to 36 years.
In prison, he matured, according to an array of people who testified on his behalf during a hearing of the state Clemency and Pardons Board, which makes recommendations to the governor.
Then Whitman College Provost Alzada Tipton, who observed Covert’s participation in classes and reading groups the private college ran at the penitentiary, spoke of his impressive intellect and positivity. A former penitentiary associate superintendent said people he brought through the prison on tours often mistook Covert for a staffer as the then incarcerated man spoke about programs he was developing.
One was the podcast. Covert had proposed a prison radio show years ago. For the longest time, he said, he heard nothing. He started telling stories about his life behind bars to an independent outlet known as Prison Riot Radio, which records the voices of incarcerated people around the country.
Then, one day, he was approached by his boss at the penitentiary’s Sustainable Practices Lab, a vast space where incarcerated men make everything from chairs to toys to artwork sold at auctions.
Prison administrators, aware of a prison radio out of Colorado, were now gung ho on the idea, Covert was told. Thrilled, he recruited his friend Nelson, who was putting out his own podcast by recording segments from prison his wife would post.
The duo helped bring in Edwards and a host identified only as “Cambo” (DOC will not allow his full name to be used out of concern for victim sensitivities). The four of them, along with the Unincarcerated folks, refined the idea for the modern media landscape. It would be a podcast.
When he was released last summer, Covert was determined to keep working on the project. He carried a recorder everywhere. At a Walla Walla Juneteenth celebration, he asked attendees what they thought of the penitentiary and its inhabitants.
“Concrete Mama” podcast hosts Anthony Covert ], left, and Vik Chopra attended a Juneteenth celebration in Walla Walla. (Courtesy of Unincarcerated Productions)
On this day, he had his recorder in his car and he went to get it to play some audio. It was from the first days after Covert’s release. His voice is filled with awe as he narrates his everyday activities: looking at trees, people-watching on a street, surveying his new sneakers and skinny jeans. “It’s crazy” he says.
Covert recently moved from group housing to an apartment and works in shipment for a retail store. He coordinates with podcast team members inside the penitentiary by video-calling into meetings. Chopra, who lives in L.A. often does the same. They both did so for a September meeting.
In a custom-built second-floor studio within the Sustainable Practices Lab, Nelson, Edwards and Cambo sat around a wooden table inlaid with the name of the podcast, made in the woodworking shop beneath them. Each faced a mic. On the wall hung a white board outlining themes and goals: “Respect the victim.” “Be in the moment.” “Ask people to describe themselves.”
The team records much of the podcast here and also periodically checks out portable mics.
Demar Nelson was working on his own podcast when he was approached about starting Concrete Mama. He said walking up to people in prison with a mic can be tough because you’re asking them to reveal their most vulnerable sides. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times)
The men expressed wonder at their enterprise and the confidence DOC has placed in them. They recalled that on a visit to the penitentiary last year, then DOC Secretary Strange and two of her top lieutenants agreed to a recorded interview.
“Chris had to pinch me,” Nelson said of Chris McGill, a corrections specialist who runs the Sustainable Practices Lab.
Kjack, driving in from Seattle for this September meeting, brought more good news. Edovo, a company that provides educational content to incarcerated people on a tablet app, had just agreed to carry “Concrete Mama.” Roughly 900,000 people nationwide have access to the app, including at the penitentiary.
The room filled with applause.
The men seemed aware they were making history even as they were recording it.
Nina Shapiro, The Seattle Times, 206-464-3303 or nshapiro@seattletimes.com.