After 21 years of incarceration and painstaking efforts to fight his contentious conviction, it was a whirlwind when rapper McKinley “Mac” Phipps Jr. was granted early release in June and walked out the door just a few hours later.
He was greeted by his wife, stepdaughters and manager, and they headed straight for a New Orleans old-school classic he’d been craving: shrimp at Dunbar’s.
That night, his friends, parents, siblings and extended family all came together to welcome him at a hotel. “It was still all surreal at that point,” he said. He got home at 8:45, just in time for the 9 p.m. curfew mandated by his parole.
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Two months later, the former No Limit Records artist is still figuring out life as a free man after spending half of it locked up for a crime that another man confessed to.
Phipps told HuffPost that he starts most mornings with a long walk with his wife Angelique, taking in the sights of their Uptown, New Orleans, neighborhood. It’s not far from Broadmoor, the neighborhood he grew up in, though it all looks different now.
“New Orleans has flipped since Hurricane Katrina,” he said of his hometown. “You have white people in places that they never were before.”
After their morning walk, the two get to work piecing together the plans they spent hours ruminating over as they imagined his someday release.
They’ve secured space for Phipps’ studio that adjoins an office for Angelique. He does some work at his mom’s fine art studio, home to her activism focused on Louisiana’s broken criminal justice system and wrongfully accused prisoners. A couple of days a week, Phipps volunteers with a nonprofit, Son of a Saint, which provides mentorship to young boys growing up fatherless in New Orleans due to death or incarceration.
And, for the first time in his life, he’s spending time with his 21-year-old son outside of prison.
Source: Finally Free, Rapper Mac Phipps Works Through ‘Culture Shock’ After 21 Years In Prison
