Krip Hop News!

Krip Hop News- a revolutionary media outlet for musicians and artists with disabilities- is launched!

Leroy Moore
Sunday, September 2, 2007;

Welcome to Krip-Hop News a brand new concept where I and other writers will keep you informed about what is going on for Hip-Hop artists with disabilities and other disabled musicians across the world. This is an introductory issue and is not yet complete- we need you to contribute your news, topics and suggestions. Read on to learn more about Krip-Hop News and how you can contribute…

Artists with disabilities are in the music industry from Blues to Hip-Hop. From Blind Willie Johnson to Blind Rob and Cripple Clarence Lofton to 4Wheel City, our music has helped shape the world we live in. Krip-Hop continues this legacy with many voices from the US, UK, Spain, Africa & Haiti etc rapping not only to the Hip-Hop generation, but also to society and the world as a whole about the talents, politics and sexuality we, people struggling with disabilities, embody while at the same time fighting against the discrimination that isolates us from one another.

Krip-Hop displays the beauty and strength of collaboration and disabled music history, present and future. Our aim is to get the musical talents of hip-hop artists with disabilities into the hands of media outlets, educators, hip-hop, disability and race scholars, youth, hip-hop conference coordinators, agents and to report on the latest news on musicians with disabilities.

Krip-Hop News would like to invite you to help build or continue to build a presence in the Hip-Hop Journalism industry. Krip-Hop News knows that there has been many individual disabled Hip-Hop artists that have been showered by the Black ink of Hip-Hop journalists’ pens, including DJ Boogie Blind and MF, Grimm and Bushwick Bill to name a few. However nine times out of ten, news of Hip-Hop artists and other musicians with disabilities don’t make it in high glossy magazines, journals and books but can only be found in bites and pieces on myspace.com and other underground media outlets. If you don’t have the time and resources to research these underground outlets than you miss news, CD releases, documentaries, merchandise and events of disabled musicians.

This is why I would like to help provide this news and hope it will take off with many writers on the internet and at some point in the near future become a full fledged magazine in your local independent bookstores, but it is all up to you. At this point in time Krip-Hop News will be hosted on www.poormagazine.com and at leroymoore.com and will be in a blog form on cripmoore/myspace.com. In the near future Krip-Hop Project will be on its own website. Please contact Leroy Moore to contribute at sfdamo@yahoo.com.

Read on for the first installment of Krip Hop News...

Now Krip Hop News!

Although the Summer of 2007 is coming to an end, it has been an incredible season an one that seems to be continuing into the Fall, for Hip-Hop artists with disabilities! For me this Summer was spent roaring the Krip-Hop engine for Vol. 2 in the Krip-Hop Mixtape series. I spent time researching what Hip-Hop artists and other musicians with disabilities are doing and hammering away at the mainstream media’s lack of coverage on disability issues including the Hip-Hop magazine industry. On top of all this, I’ve also been trying to get a music show called Black Blind Blues Krip-Hip-Hop on the air at a local station here in San Francisco. All of this and the latest news I’m about to tell you has pushed me to create Krip Hop News.

There are many new projects that have come out during the Summer of 2007 or projects/CDs that I was informed of or were sent to me so, I have to write them out like a grocery list. I was very happy to finally find a Hip-Hop disabled artist that is a woman. Her name is Miss Money from Houston, TX. Miss Money is multi-talented. She is not only a Hip-Hop artist but she also sings Gospel and Soul. She is a DJ – Producer of her own internet radio show, Mic Madness, on www.Radio713.com and owner of Money Talks Records and Studios. Go to www.missmoney.net and show her some love.

After coming down from the media blitz around Krip-Hop Mixtape Vol. 1, Preechman, a slammin disabled Hip-Hop artist from Yonkers, NY reminded me that the Summer season is one of the hottest times in the music industry and that Krip-Hop should be cranking out Vol. 2.. So I was back on the Krip-Hop rollercoaster but this time Preechman offered to approach the record label, Bedroc Records, which he is on from New York. It’s been awesome working with Preehman under Bedroc Records and Vol. 2 should be out soon. Like in Vol. 1 I met some incredible artists and in each Vol. the Krip-Hop family is growing. We kept with our international flavor with Cripple Crew from Sweden, KAEM from Paris and DJ KAME from Italy to name a few for Vol. 2. Look out for it!

During the time of collecting songs from artists for Krip-Hop Vol. 2 I found out Preechman was right, the Summer is the hottest month for new releases in the music industry. Cripple Crew of Sweden answered a Krip-Hop email for Vol. 2 on myspace. They are a White disabled hip-hop group from Sweden that raps in English. In the late Spring of 2007 they were working on their new album entitled, The First Step, that came out or into my mail box recently. They are working on their next CD with a skit from I. The First Step has eight songs and each one is slammin. Of course the song, Summer Time was picked for Vol. 2 of Krip-Hop. I’ll be writing more about Cripple Crew in an upcoming issue but for now go to www.cripple-crew.com for more info.

A couple of days after I made the final decsion for the songs for Krip-Hop Vol.1, I found King Montana’s myspace page. I was pissed and excited at the same time. I was pissed because it was too late to get him on Vol. 1 but excited because I realized this was more than just Cds, it is becoming a family\movement. King Montana is on Vol. 2 and his first CD is out called In My Shoes. “You don’t know nothing until you have to survive in my shoes..” King Montana talks about his life as a Latino quadriplegic on his new CD that dropped in late July early August and his CD release party is this month, September 2007. He takes aim at the Governor of California and others who are trying to close the borders between Mexico and California in the song Freedom Fighter.

Another disabled myspace giant that will be making it on CD this month is Crazy L from Detroit, MI. Crazy L just drop his CD entitled The MadHouse and will be on Krip-Hop Vol. 2. He spits at President Bush with his song Pledge Allegiance and talks about himself and his family with no gloves on on Fool’n and Just Like Daddy. Crazy L has Muscular Dystrophy and like all the Krip-Hop artists we have talked about the music industry’s attitudes towards artists with disabilities. Besides inaccessible venues, Crazy L like the rest of us ran into some backwards thinking in the industry that pushed back his CD coming out. Fortunately Crazy L and his new CD is here so check him out on http://www.myspace.com/crazyldetmyspacecom.

Yes, we all know that New York is the birthplace of Hip-Hop but do you know for the first time ever a disabled Hip-Hop group was nominated for the Best Rap Group in the 5th annual Underground Music Awards this Summer. Although they didn’t get enough votes to win, it was the first time a disabled group was nominated. A month later 4Wheelcity was on Fox News. So throw up your 4s for not only 4Wheelcity but for our movement then go to www.myspace\4wheelcity.com to get the latest on 4Wheelcity. If anybody is looking for a Hip-Hop group who can rhythm to the youth, adults, elders in one place book 4wheelcity.

It seems like many Hip-Hop artists are on the big screen lately from Snoop Dog to 50 Cent to Common. Well finally in late Spring of 2007 I had a chance to meet face to face HalfaSoulja aka Bryon Breeze on the corner of Madison and Broadway in his New York office. Bryon Breeze has no legs and two fingers. He is CEO of Urban Casualties Production and star of Kathy Kiley’s documentary, HalfaSoulja, that will be completed by the Fall of 2007. On July 22nd Bryon Breeze was featured in the New York Times talking about his work, the documentary, and his training for the seventh annual Nautica New York City Triathlon in Manhattan. When I interviewed him on the corner, his office, everybody stopped and talked to him, men in suits and women in high heels. He has many plans and one is to move his business inside the building he now sits out of. After seven years of Kathy’s camera following him, he was at home while we talked about Hip-Hop and artists with disabilities. HalfaSoulja is almost ready for its public release. For more information go to www.halfasoulja.com.

Last election we saw one of the first Hip-Hop journalist\activist, Kevin Powell run for Congress in New York but dropped out in the early stages of the race. Today we have Keith Jones, a Black disabled activist and Hip-Hop artist who is testing the political waters for a Senate seat in November of 2008. Keith Jones has put out two slammin Hip-Hop Cds and is working on a movie. But he has always kept his toes in the political arena. He just completed training on running for political office so we will see. For more information on Mr. Jones go to www.dasoultoucha.com

In the book publishing arena, the long awaiting Percy Carey, AKA MF GRIMM’s book, Sentences: The Life of MF GRIMM, is out! It is an original hardcover graphic novel. This is the first book by a disabled Hip-Hop artist that I know of! MF GRIMM has lived a life that is very unique but on the other side some of his struggles are felt in the Black community and in the Hip-Hop generation. MF GRIMM went from the cradle to the Big Screen in Sesame Street. Although MF GRIMM was a rising Hip-Hop star in the eighties he was brought back to the cold streets where he was caught up in a police crack down on New York gangs and was shot more than ten times then locked up for what we still don’t know. Now today he is CEO of his own record\entertainment business, Day by Day Ent. in NY where he puts out up coming artists and has released the first ever triple CD box set entitled, American Hunger, earlier in 2007. This is the second time I have written about MF GRIMM. Google my article, Bullets And Wheelchairs in Hip-Hop. His new CD, The Hunt For The Gingerbread Man will be release on September 25th. Get Sentences: The Life Story of MF GRIMM at your local bookstore. Watch out for my book review of Sentence and hopefully an interview with MF GRIMM.

Last but not lest Krip-Hop artists, Preechman ,DA Southern Boyz and I have been invited to the first Hip-Hop Journalism Association Conference in Miami, FL on Oct 19-21. This is once again a first time that a Hip-Hop conference will have a panel focusing on Hip-Hop artists with disabilities and how the music industry deals or doesn’t deal with artists with disabilities. We will have Krip-Hop Vol. 2 and each artist will have their own merchandise. For more info on the Hip-Hop Journalism Association and its conference, go to www.hhja.org.

Here are some Hip-Hop Artists with disabilities that are ripping up the underground and Myspace. Hip-Hop Magazines do your job and write about them!

Rob Da Noize Temple
George "T.r.a.G.i.C." Doman
Professir X
Crazy L
Poppa Wheely
Miss Money
CB-40
DJ Quad
Suspence

Stay Tuned for more Krip-Hop News!