Five Mualimm-ak was born in Ethiopia in 1975 and moved to the United States with his family at the age of 12. He entered the New York State prison system in his early twenties with a sentence of 33 years to life for a series of drug offenses. Mualimm-ak served a total of 12 years, five of them in solitary confinement, before the majority of his convictions were overturned and he was released on time served in 2012. In 2015, he launched his own advocacy group made up of formerly incarcerated people, the Incarcerated Nation Corporation.