7/28 #KripHopDVP chat: Disabled Musicians in Hip-Hop, Rap, Jazz & Blues

#KripHopDVP Twitter Chat

Disabled Musicians in Hip-Hop, Rap, Jazz & Blues

Thursday, July 28, 2016

5 pm Pacific/ 8 pm Eastern

 

The Disability Visibility Project™ is proud to partner with Leroy Moore, writer, poet, community activist, and of Founder of Krip-Hop Nation in a conversation about disabled musicians in hip-hop, rap, jazz, & blues.

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. 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.

Source: http://kriphopnation.com/krip-hop-nation-will-turn-ten-years-old-in-2017/

Please note this chat will discuss disabled musicians and Black disabled musicians in particular. FYI: while there are many genres of music, we will be focusing on: hip-hop, rap, jazz, & blues.

How to Participate

Follow @kriphopnation @DisVisibility on Twitter

Use the hashtag #KripHopDVP when you tweet. If you can’t join us on 7/28, feel free to tweet anytime before or after with the hashtag.

If you’re new to Twitter chats, check out this explanation of what happens during a chat by Ruti Regan: https://storify.com/RutiRegan/examplechat

If you don’t use Twitter and want to follow along in real-time, check out the live-stream: http://twubs.com/KripHopDVP

#KripHopDVP Tweets for 7/28 chat

Welcome to our #KripHopDVP chat w/ guest host @kriphopnation! Please remember to use the hashtag when you tweet.

If you respond to a question such as Q1, your tweet should follow this format: “A1 [your message] #KripHopDVP” Ready? Here we go!

From the beginning, there have always been disabled artists creating work. Some are recognized while others erased from history #KripHopDVP

Q1 Marginalized & oppressed people have always created art. What barriers do disabled musicians face? #KripHopDVP

Q2 Does it matter if you know whether a musician is disabled or not (from past and today)? What additional context does it add? #KripHopDVP

Disabled people have used as entertainment for consumption of non-disabled audiences (ex: museum exhibits, circus sideshows) #KripHopDVP

Q3 What tensions do disabled musicians have to deal w/ about their image/identity, commodification, & the non-disabled gaze? #KripHopDVP

Q4 How does racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia & other -isms impact disabled musicians who are currently ‘trying to make it’? #KripHopDVP

Black musicians historically have been exploited, appropriated, taken for granted & unrecognized. #KripHopDVP

Q5 Who are some of the Black disabled musicians in Jazz and the Blues that history has forgotten about? #KripHopDVP

Q6 Who are some of the Black disabled musicians in Hip-Hop and Rap that we should know more about? #KripHopDVP

Q7 What is the connection between Black disabled musicians in the US with the African diaspora? #KripHopDVP

Q8 In what ways do Black disabled musicians continue the traditional role of the griot, the storyteller/musician/historian? #KripHopDVP

Hip-Hop and Rap has roots in wordplay, truth-telling, fighting the power & social activism. #KripHopDVP

Q9 What issues & stories are disabled rappers highlighting that are unique to the disabled experience? #KripHopDVP

Q10 What’s your reaction when you see non-disabled musicians appropriate disability culture, or use ableist slurs? #KripHopDVP

Q11 Last question: who are some of the disabled musicians you know and love? Share your memories, stories & any links #KripHopDVP

This ends our #KripHopDVP chat! Many thanks to everyone who participated, especially @kriphopnation. Please feel free to continue the convo!

Additional Links

Shanna Collins. (April 9, 2016). It’s Time to Confront the Erasure of Disability in Hip-Hop

Joseph Gentile. (December 5, 2013). Everyone in this Wheelchair Sports Camp Is Stoned and Making Beats

Adelle Platon. (May 4, 2016). 50 Cent Apologizes For Mocking Autistic Airport Employee on Instagram

Dr. James Peterson. (August 18, 2015). Rapper and activist Leroy Moore: disability a neglected part of hip hop, black culture

Leroy Moore. (February 2016). Stevie Wonder’s Activism Can’t Be Laugh/Wash Away

Leroy Moore. (June 1, 2016). New Term Using History Internationally To Come Up With The Present – AfroKrip

Leroy Moore. (June 6, 2016). Grace A. Jerry, What Is Happening In Nigeria, Africa, Activism & Music?

About

Leroy Moore is an African American writer, poet, community activist, and feminist. He is notable for the creation of Krip Hop – a movement that uses hip-hop music as a means of expression for people with disabilities.  Since the 1990s, he has written the column Illin-N-Chillin for POOR Magazine. Moore is also a co-founder of the disability performance art collective, Sins Invalid. He currently serves as the Chair of the Black Disability Studies Committee for the National Black Disability Coalition.

Alice Wong is a San Francisco-based disability advocate, freelance journalist, television watcher, news junkie, cat lover, and coffee drinker. Currently, she is the Founder and Project Coordinator for the Disability Visibility Project (DVP), a community partnership with StoryCorps and an online community dedicated to recording, amplifying, and sharing disability stories and culture. Currently she is a co-partner with Andrew Pulrang and Gregg Beratan for #CripTheVote, a non-partisan online campaign encouraging the political participation of people with disabilities. She is also a Staff Research Associate at the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, San Francisco.