Rodney Carmichael and Sidney Madden are the hosts ofLouder Than A Riot, from NPR Music that investigates the interconnected rise of hip-hop and mass incarceration in America. On Feb. 22, former No Limit Records artist McKinley "Mac" Phipps appeared before the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole. It was a chance he'd been waiting on for two decades. In 2001, Mac was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 30 years hard labor in connection to a shooting at Club Mercedes in Slidell, La. — a crime he and many others say he didn't commit. The path to this clemency hearing started in 2018 when Mac filed an application requesting a commutation of his sentence — it was his second time filing after a 2016 clemency hearing request was denied. This January, he got an update: The hearing had been scheduled.