Jelly Roll wants to make a difference for youth in Nashville, Tennessee.
On Thursday, August 8, the country singer, 39, helped break ground on the city's new Youth Center for Empowerment, after having spent time in the old facility — Davidson County Juvenile Justice Center — as a teenager.
"I celebrated my 14th, 15th, and 16th birthdays there. The only reason I wasn't there at 17 was because I was charged as an adult," he told local Fox affiliate WZTV. Jelly Roll was incarcerated for alleged crimes ranging from robbery to drug dealing, eventually being charged as an adult at 16 for aggravated robbery.
"I never want to overlook the fact that it was a heinous crime," he told Billboard in June 2023, though he was frustrated that his charge didn't leave room for rehabilitation. "They were talking about giving me more time than I'd been alive," he said, of a possible 20-year sentence.
Jelly Roll, born Jason Bradley DeFord, said the old facility "hadn't changed nothing but the paint in 30 years." The CMT Music Award winner, who is from Antioch, Tennessee, said he knew that "because I was there." He made it to the facility's groundbreaking despite having a show in Las Vegas later that same night.
"Get rid of stuff that makes you feel like a caged animal. Make these kids feel loved and give them a chance in life," Jelly Roll told the publication. "A lot of these kids are victims of their circumstances. This is a really great chance to change things."
The new facility, situated on 14 acres, will include a 24-hour youth crisis center, court rooms, meeting spaces, and facilities to help families. The facility — for which construction is set to be completed in 2027 — "will be a family-oriented, trauma-informed campus," according to Nashville's Juvenile Court Clerk website.
Back in May 2024, Jelly Roll worked with Impact Youth Outreach to donate a recording studio to the Davidson County Juvenile Justice Center, where he had been incarcerated growing up.
At the time, he told People that being incarcerated was "the most impactful thing that ever happened in my life," noting that "the darkest moments of my life still were being that 15-year-old scared kid spending Thanksgiving away from his family."
He stressed how "important" it is to give back to our kids, who cannot help what situations they are born into. "Sometimes they can't see past that situation, or that neighborhood or that environment," he told the publication. "I just hope to bring hope to that and kind of be a beacon and a light for those kids."
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