Hak Baker: 'Music saved me in prison, now I want to give back'
You'd probably associate Hak Baker more with performing on stage than singing in prison.
But the singer has just led a music workshop behind bars, at HMP Isis, a Category C men's prison and young offender institution in south-east London.
It's not the first time Hak's stepped inside a jail - he learned to play the guitar while he was serving a sentence for robbery in his 20s.
Since releasing music in 2017, Hak's mix of ska, reggae and punk has won fans including Skepta and Annie Mac, and he's played stages across the world.
His first album - Worlds End FM - released last year, was called one of 2023's best debuts by music magazine NME.
Now Hak is keen to encourage current prisoners to pursue a career in music.
"What motivates me is to motivate them," Hak tells BBC Newsbeat.
"Don't just go down in a book as a statistic," he says.
"We don't just have to be crabs in a bucket. We can be dolphins in the sea."
Hak also says he wants to be "a beacon of hope and inspiration" for his "working class brothers and sisters".
His "dream", he says, is to perform concerts like Johnny Cash - the US country singer who famously played for inmates at San Quentin and Folsom prisons.
"My whole journey runs parallel with prison and outside playing guitar in prison, I really forgot who I was in prison," he says.
"People need to see people and hear people that know them, sound like them, act like them and who've been through the same thing as them."
Prison music workshops aren't a new thing, with the government believing that supporting prisoners creatively cuts the chance of re-offending.
A prisoner who attended the workshop tells Newsbeat he can relate to Hak. He says he became a much "happier person" writing music inside.
"I want to be a successful artist. I want to go straight into the deep end," he adds.
"I started writing and became a happier person writing music, and yeah the journey is still going, I've got a long way to come."
For Hak, the workshop brings back memories of writing lyrics in prison.
"When we were in jail, we would rap all day long - anytime we get we'd be writing lyrics," he says.
Since his release, Hak says it's his mum who's continued to motivate and inspire him.
"I put my mum through a lot of stuff, she tried to be the best that she could," he says.
"And I really just want to repay her back and make her happy."
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