Tennessee board recommends Jelly Roll be pardoned for crimes committed in his youth

Country music star Jelly Roll is a step closer to being granted a pardon for crimes he committed, including robbery, in his younger days, a Tennessee sheriff said.

Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall said Tuesday on X that the state Board of Parole voted to endorse a pardon for the singer, legally known as Jason B. Deford, 40. The Associated Press reported that the vote was unanimous, with one member recusing.

Under Tennessee law, the matter is now before Gov. Bill Lee, who can grant a pardon, grant a commutation erasing Jelly Roll’s criminal record or turn down the request.

Spokespersons for the board and for the governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday night.

Hall said he asked Lee to pardon Jelly Roll roughly a year ago, and he indicated that Tuesday’s vote was part of that endeavor.

Jelly Roll, known for his face tattoos and prodigious presence, sharpened his rap skills in prison before he blended them with country music for a career that earned him four Grammy Award nominations in February.

He has used his experience as a basis for some of his music and to inspire others imprisoned, attracted to lives of crime or otherwise marginalized with little sense of hope.

He speaks at prisons, rehabilitation programs and schools. In April, he accepted an award for his advocacy from the World Literacy Foundation at its annual summit at Oxford University, where a host likened him to a modern-day Johnny Cash.

Jelly Roll has said he’s not allowed to vote because of his criminal convictions.

He said he spent most of the years between ages 14 and 25 behind bars, with his most consequential conviction being for a robbery. He admitted on a podcast last month that he sold drugs in his Nashville neighborhood, where “the only people who had money did crime.”

He said a low point in life was when a prison guard came to his cell to report his daughter had been born — 17 years ago.

“I had the one pair of clothes that I was incarcerated in,” he said on the “SmartLess” podcast. “I had zero money. In fact, I was in debt. It was the most honest accountability and self-reflection moment in my life.”

Jelly Roll rapped in prison, he said, and eventually more than 200 prisoners surrounded him for Friday night performances. “We’d beat on the walls,” he said on the podcast, referring to makeshift rap beats.

“It felt like we’d be free for the night,” he said.

He was released from prison in late 2016, according to state records. He didn’t immediately break through in music, but he clawed at his dreams, “living in a van and doing $50 shows,” he said on the podcast.

His music told some of his story. “Save Me” in 2020 includes the lines “Somebody save me, me from myself/I’ve spent so long living in Hell/They say my lifestyle is bad for my health/It’s the only thing that seems to help.”

Testifying in favor of new legislation to address fentanyl overdoses, Jelly Roll told Congress last year that a passenger jet’s worth of synthetic opioid users die every day, often relatively unnoticed, in the United States.

The deaths don’t capture the attention of a plane crash because the people who died are less valued, he said. “America has been known to bully and shame drug addicts,” he told federal lawmakers in January 2024.

Jelly Roll said he’s doing his part for those entangled in drugs and the justice system.

“I’m a guy that proves it’s never too late to change,” he said on the podcast.