Florida Rapper MunYon Keeps Making Music From Prison
The Bradenton artist is serving a five-year sentence at Florida State Prison, but incarceration has not stopped his music. MunYon is recording verses by prison phone, building an unexpected audience behind the walls and preparing his sophomore album, The Hand I Was Dealt, for 2027.
For most artists, disappearing from the outside world for several years would bring a music career to a halt. Bradenton, Florida rapper MunYon is trying to prove otherwise.
Currently serving a five-year prison sentence for drug trafficking and gun possession, MunYon is incarcerated at Florida State Prison, the maximum-security institution near Raiford that houses Florida’s execution chamber and has long been associated with some of the state’s most notorious prisoners.
Serial killer Ted Bundy spent years on death row there before being executed at Florida State Prison in 1989. According to MunYon, Nikolas Cruz, the gunman responsible for the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, is also housed at the prison.
He’s also sharing space with a slew of Florida rappers currently serving time on charges ranging from racketeering to drug possession, including SpotemGottem, 9lokknine, Y&R Mookey and Ksoo. In that environment, MunYon serves as a striking example of art imitating life.
It is an extreme environment in which to attempt to maintain a music career.
Yet while MunYon remains physically removed from Bradenton and the Florida rap scene that produced him, his music has continued circulating outside the prison — and, unusually, inside it as well.
MunYon’s catalog is available through prison tablets, meaning the people incarcerated alongside him can listen to the same records available to fans on the outside. In the process, prison itself has created an unexpected new audience for his music.
“Once they find out I’m a rapper—a serious rapper—most of them become fans of my music and want to know some of my rapper stories,” MunYon says. “Unless they’re a hater.”
It is a strange extension of a career rooted in Bradenton’s independent hip-hop scene and built through collaborations with artists including JEEPER$, Peso Peso, KirbLaGoop and members of the Florida-based DANGERHOUSE collective.
And even without access to a recording studio, MunYon has found ways to continue appearing on new music.
His latest contribution comes on “SONAR/RADAR,” a track from JEEPER$ and LORD VZA’s collaborative project GULLY SWAMP MUSIC, releasing August 21, 2026. MunYon recorded his verse over a prison phone, leaving the limitations and texture of the call intact rather than attempting to disguise the circumstances under which it was made.
The appearance makes MunYon the project’s only outside guest and provides a literal example of how his incarceration has become part of the sound of his current music. Rather than waiting until he is released to resume recording, MunYon is continuing to contribute however the circumstances allow.
Even from prison, he intends to keep expanding that catalog.
The Hand I Was Dealt
MunYon is currently preparing his sophomore album, The Hand I Was Dealt, for an April 1, 2027 release.
Featuring appearances from KING PILL, HowardTheGreat and Ebaby, the album is intended to give listeners a broader look at MunYon’s sound, versatility and experiences.
Its title has taken on additional meaning because of the circumstances surrounding its creation.
Rather than allowing incarceration to create a blank space in his discography, MunYon says he plans to release at least one album for every year he remains incarcerated, with help from his team on the outside and his DANGERHOUSE family.
Before the album arrives, he plans to release the single “Gone Til November” on February 8, 2027.
For MunYon, continuing to release music is one piece of a larger effort to keep moving forward while serving his sentence.
His days inside Florida State Prison, however, look very different from the life of a typical working artist.
A Day in the Life of an Artist and Inmate
Asked to describe an ordinary day inside the prison, MunYon laughs before beginning with one of the least glamorous realities of incarceration: breakfast.
“Well, first of all, they serve breakfast at 4:30 AM. 4:30!” he says.
MunYon admits he does not always make the early trip.
“Most times I only go to breakfast two days a week—coffee cake day and grits and gravy day, which is Wednesday and Thursday morning.”
Even getting to the dining hall can become part of the punishment.
“To go to breakfast, lunch or dinner, we have to walk way across the prison—pouring rain or scorching heat—just to eat,” he says.
After breakfast, MunYon typically returns to his dorm and sleeps until approximately 6:30 AM, when officers begin preparing the incarcerated population for work.
His own assignment is unusual.
MunYon works at the prison’s water treatment plant, where he says he is accumulating experience and hours toward eventually becoming a licensed water treatment plant operator.
“I work at the water treatment plant at the prison, which provides water to most of the town I’m in,” MunYon says. “I work at a plant gaining hours towards getting licensed as a water treatment plant operator.”
According to MunYon, only four people out of a prison population of roughly one thousand work at the plant.
“My job is dope as f***,” he says. “Only four out of about a thousand people work at the water plant. Most other inmates are doing things like cutting grass, doing farm labor or some other backbreaking punishment job. I was blessed to do what I do while incarcerated.”
His workday generally ends around 2 PM.
From there, his routine becomes a mixture of ordinary prison life, preparation for the future and whatever room remains for creativity.
“After work I go back to my dorm, shower, make my daily phone calls, then bullshit till dinner time,” MunYon says. “We eat dinner at about 5:30, then it’s back to my dorm where I study my water treatment books, sometimes write music or work on business plans I wrote, play a little chess, bullshit a little, maybe watch some TV, play games or write messages on my tablet.”
Some nights include cooking with the small group of friends he has made inside.
“Cook a goulash with the few homies I made, make goodnight calls, then go to sleep to repeat my day over and over,” he says.
For all the differences between his current reality and the life he lived outside prison, MunYon describes the repetition matter-of-factly.
“That’s pretty much how my days go,” he says. “My day, or pretty much anyone’s day who’s in my position, whether you’re P. Diddy or just an average Joe Schmoe.”
Music Beyond the Prison Walls
Prison has removed MunYon from the day-to-day activity of Florida’s independent rap scene, but it has not erased the catalog he built before entering the system.
His existing releases include “Big Dawg” featuring Texas rapper Peso Peso, “Dirty Pajamas” with JEEPER$ featuring KirbLaGoop, “Rumors In The City” and “Broken Home.”
He also shares a collaborative album with fellow Bradenton rapper JEEPER$.
Cult Status brought the two artists together for a project rooted in the same underground Florida rap community that continues to surround MunYon’s work during his incarceration.
That relationship has extended well beyond recording music. MunYon’s prison-phone appearance on “SONAR/RADAR” shows that the collaboration is continuing even with one artist inside Florida State Prison and the other working on the outside.
During a prison phone call, MunYon was asked what he wanted to say to the friends, family members and supporters who have continued following him throughout his sentence.
“Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of y’all’s support,” MunYon says. “A big thank you to my brothers JEEPER$ and Sie Yung for always having my back. They been here every day of my bid. I love y’all boyz.”
And, naturally, MunYon used part of the opportunity to promote his music.
“Y’all go stream me and my brother JEEPER$’ joint album Cult Status, out now and available everywhere.”
He closed by turning his attention toward his family.
“Also shout out to my son and ma dukes. I love y’all. And free all my bros from the chaingang.”
For MunYon, the next several years will inevitably be defined in part by incarceration.
But prison has not completely separated him from the identity he built before entering it.
His records remain available. Other inmates discover his music through prison tablets. His team continues operating outside the walls. He is still finding ways to record new verses through a prison phone. He studies for a possible career in water treatment while simultaneously writing music, developing business plans and preparing future releases.
And when The Hand I Was Dealt arrives in 2027, it will document a period of MunYon’s career unlike anything that came before it: a Bradenton rapper attempting to remain an active participant in Florida hip-hop while experiencing that world almost entirely from behind prison walls.
Prison has changed where MunYon makes his plans.
So far, it has not stopped him from making them.
© 2026, Logan. All rights reserved.
