"I'm currently in my grave, with my eyes open, dirt up to my neck, getting dizzy as the world turns," Taxstone writes on a note he shared with his Twitter followers today. The former podcast host of Tax Season is currently locked up in Riker's Island, stemming back to a 2016 shooting in New York that left Troy Ave's bodyguard dead. It was an unfortunate series of events that happened just as Taxstone's star was starting to take off, and the New York native was building a name for himself with his long-form conversations on Tax Season.

Taxstone is no longer someone we hear from on the daily, but every now and then he delivers fans a message by way of social media. This particular message though, is disheartening. Tax shares with his followers how conditions have been for the prisoners of Riker's Island. "For a month now, we haven't been allowed visits, legal or social. Understandable, considering what's going on. But what I don't understand is how the only people we have contact with on the outside, the correctional officers and civilians, have no protective gear and they aren't giving us anything to protect ourselves." He goes on to write how he's been aware that certain people are being released from prison because of the pandemic -- however "I see head of corrections stating not to release people charged with murder, rape or robbery...like it's ok for THEM die."

"The moral code that they have written and are now breaking, goes against all codes of humanity, in the middle of a global pandemic," Taxstone continues in his heartfelt message. "We're being raped of our rights of being innocent until proven guilty, and being left on an island to be murdered by this uncontrolled serial killer called Covid-19. They don't even care about the correctional officers. We're all just a check at the end of the day, in one of the industries that are still intact during this global pandemic. The correction officers have families too, you think they want to catch something and bring it home to their families? Of course not!"

From there, he details how an inmate in the cell beside his just found out his mother passed away due to Coronavirus. This same inmate was in for a 3 month parole violation, but was held in the jail for an extra month because of the virus. 

Read his full message below. It couldn't be a more appropriate time to use Taxstone's own phrase: Be safe though.

It was originally reported that famed podcaster Daryl “Taxstone” Campbell was supposed to see his day in court last November for the 2016 Irving Plaza shooting that resulted in the murder of Troy Ave‘s bodyguard, Ronald “Banga” McPhatter. Now, it looks like that date has been officially pushed to March 2020.

According to AllHipHop, a recent change in New York State’s current discovery laws was the main reason for the date switch, with the new rules going into effect on January 1, 2020. Taxstone’s counsel, Kenneth Montgomery, said the new March 2020 date gives the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office sufficient time to be in “full compliance” with the updated laws. As for Troy Ave, he plans on cooperating fully with authorities to clear his name and avoid the 20-year sentence that’s he’s currently out on bail for. As you can see from his IG post above, Troy Ave’s been going through these legal battles as recently as December 2019.

Take a look at what the White Christmas 7 rapper told HNHH exclusively last month in regards to him being labeled a “snitch” throughout this whole ordeal:

“I think it’s a lot of hypocrisy with it because in one breath, people will say — well, most sane people with any type of sense would be like, “Hell no. You don’t go to jail for your enemy.” For your friends, that’s different. For any enemy, once they take their gloves off, the gloves is off. The hypocrisy in it is that people will tell you or some people will say, “You should go to jail for him. You should take the charges and then fight it. That’s the code of the streets.” Not even fight it — you don’t say, “That’s not my gun.” Then the D.A. will say, “Whose gun is it?” Then you gonna say, “I don’t know whose gun it is.” But that’s crazy. They don’t want you to do that, because you should go down for that but in the same breath, they wouldn’t be willing to go down.”

— Troy Ave for HotNewHipHop

Taxstone’s 2016 Irving Plaza shooting trial is set to begin on March 5, 2020. Let us know which side you agree with over in the comments.