Booking:

Book Krip-Hop Nation For Your Next Event

Krip-Hop Nation/Leroy Moore Jr.
1370 University Ave. #316
Berkeley, CA. 94702 USA
kriphopnation@gmail.com, www.kriphonation.com

Colleges & Universities, Festivals & Future Collaborators,My name is Leroy Moore of Krip-Hop Nation (an international artistic/activist network focusing on disability justice through music/poetry i.e. Hip-Hop, Blues and Jazz). Krip-Hop Nation/Leroy Moore has been on the college circuit since 1998 and performed and provided workshops at Harvard, University of California at Berkeley, New York University, Rayson University in Toronto, Ca to name a few. We would love to come to your campus or festival or talk about the possibility of future collaborations!

Below is a little history of the work of Krip-Hop Nation nationally & internationally.Krip-Hop Nation is an international network of Hip-Hop & other musicians with disabilities with a few chapters around the world what we call Mcees With Disabilities (MWD) in Germany, UK & Africa & more. Krip-Hop is a community as well as style of music, an artistic space where people with disabilities can speak out and speak back to the social structures that exclude people based on disability, race, sexuality, and a host of other marginalized identities. Founding members are Leroy F. Moore Jr., Keith Jones & Rob ‘Da Noize Temple of the Sugarhill Gang and Binki Wo of Germany .

Krip-Hop Nation mission is to educate the music, media industries and general public about the talents, history, rights and marketability of Hip-Hop artists and other musicians with disabilities from Blues to Hip-Hop internationally. Our bi-line is Krip-Hop is More Than Music.

In 2009 Krip-Hop Nation hosted the first ever conference on Diversifying Hip-Hop, Homo-Hop & Krip-Hop bring queer & disabled Hip-Hop artists together at U.C. Berkeley & at NYU.

In 2007/8 I started to interview two African disabled music groups one in the Zimbabwe & the other in the Congo before they both blew up on America stages and on the big screen. Talking about Staff Benda Bilili of the Congo & Liyana of Zimbawbe.

In 2009 I went to Copenhagan, Denmark to see and interview with my sister Staff Benda Bilili at the WOMEX Music Expo.Even earlier in 2006 I had a chance to be in the audience at an international disabled film festival in Munich, Germany because my film, Forbidden Acts, was in it and saw my first ever Hip-Hop video singing and rapping about Arabs with disabilities. The Music video was entitled “Ekhtilef Tabiyeh” aka Difference is Normal that was directed by Rayess Bek and was shot around the country of Lebanon featuring people with disabilities just living. He was commission in 2006 by the United Nation to compose and produce a song for a special awareness campaign on disability. The song and video, “Ekhtilef Tabiyeh” (“Difference is Normal”) was part of the first media campaign promoting acceptance of people with disabilities in the Middle East. It has been broadcast in over 20 countries in North Africa and the Middle East. That video blew me away and expanded my vision for the new born Krip-Hop Nation in 2006.

After that film festival in 2006 I went to go see BINKI WOI in the countryside outside of Munich to confirm that Krip-Hop Nation is internationally. Also in 2006, Krip-Hop Nation had it’s first full color three page feature article not in the US but in Italy.

Our second Krip-Hop event happened in London, England in 2010 when I & Lisa Gray Garcia were invited to speak at University of Nottingham also in th UK. At that time one of our first members was Lady MJ of the UK who organized the whole event straight from her pocket.

Krip-Hop Nation’s first festival was DADA Festival in Liverpool, UK in 2012 then went back in 2014 for a UK tour and in that same year 2014 Krip-Hop Nation was invited to our third festival, Tangle Arts in Toronto, Canada. Not until 2017 Krip-Hop Nation was apart of a US base festival called Hubweek in Boston, MA.

Since those early days of Krip-Hop Nation, I continue to see myself more empowering ways in the Hip-Hop, music arenas and even on the big screen outside the US.

In 2015 Krip-Hop Nation, Leroy Moore teamed up with Zimbawbian newspaper owner in South Afica, Simon Manda, to do what we called, Journey To The South Tour. On December 3rd, 2016 at 8:30am, I landed on South African soil! The dream had been realized. On the first encounter, it was all hugs and a sit-down to plan the tour. The day was the International Day for Persons with Disabilities and already there was a schedule to watch a musical play that evening in Durban. The play, In Blood, featured a crew of 100 actors with disabilities and it marked the start of this epic journey. The rest of the schedule was to pan out as follows:

4th to 11th December 2016: Jhb, PTA and surrounds
12th to 15th December 2016: Durban
16th to 20th December 2016: East London
21st December 2016: Port Elizabeth
22nd to 26th December 2016: Cape Town
26th to 28th December 2016; Jhb, PTA and surrounds

As Simon & I went through a rough draft of 70 profiles spread across the cities above, we realized that there was a lot of time needed hence a second phase we hope to start in Winter of 2019 and possibly one month per year thereafter until the realization of profiling urban and rural profiles across South Africa and beyond. Simon and I are also working on a film of our adventures and interviews and performances of South Africans artists with disabilities of the 20016 tour.

Krip-Hop Nation have deep international roots from Africa, Spain, Italy, UK, Germany, Canada and now in Brazil and growing. In 2014 Krip-Hop Nation successful sent two wheelchairs to a single father of two disabled daughters and paid for one daughter school year’s fees.

Once again all of the above proves that disability culture, music, activism and arts are world-wide and continues to grow! Krip-Hop Nation hopes to continue to strengthen our USA roots knowing that Hip-Hop started in my hometown, New York City.

In 2017 Krip-Hop Nation collaborated with Congo Handicapped and in 2018 Francine of that organization came to Berkeley, CA to meet with Krip-Hop Nation. All of this work is leading up to 2019 Summer African Disabled Musicians Bay Area Tour and a CD featuring disabled & non disabled African musicians produced by Krip-Hop Nation..

We are very proud about our new presentations, “Black/Brown International Disability Art and Hip-Hop” that was at Whitney Museum of American Art, New York in June of 2017 and our brand new presentations, Slavery to Jim Crow to Ugly Laws to Surveillance Being Black, Disabled Under the Continuation of A Police State & Using Krip-Hop Politics To Empower Black Disabled Men In & Out of the Entertainment Industry..

Krip-Hop Nation’s two Founders, Keith Jones & I have created Krip-Hop Nation:
The Crossroads Experience which is a performance using original music and poetry along with imagery taking the audience on a journey through experiences of being black in the world of disability that premiered at HUB week in Boston, Mass Oct 10-15/2017.

We, at Krip-Hop Nation, hope you are interested in continuing to talk about the possibilities of having us, Krip-Hop Nation, on your campus/in your festival or collaborations. You can also check out our Workshops & Performance page @ http://kriphopnation.com/category/workshopsperformances/ to see a list of presentations, videos & our contract. Drop us a line at Kriphopnation@gmail.com