Leroy Moore is a founder of Krip-Hop Nation, which pushes real, disabled-made hip-hop out to the masses via the web and its semi-annual mixtapes. Listen here.

What was the first song you ever wrote, and what inspired it?

I’m very new to writing songs and I think my first song (If you can call it a song…it was more like a poem) was “Krip-Hop.” I call myself a poet but I always loved music and realized that many poets like Gil Scott-Heron, Jill Scott, Ursula Rucker and many more have started as poets and became singers. I mean Hip-Hop is really poetry if you drop the music.

It can be a pain in the ass dealing with the oppression that comes with being disabled. Does being both black *and* disabled complicate things at all?

For me it’s just who I am but the oppression in both communities against each other is still shocking. Fuck, it is 2012 and still there is racism in the disabled community and ableism in the people of color community. A lack of coming together and very little knowledge, visibility in the mainstream of the history, art, music and other contributions of people of color with disabilities is just mind-blowing. However recently there are projects around this country and world are doing their best to change this lack of knowledge but I wish we could all come together. The system we live under keeps us apart and competing each other and that is very sad.

How’d you get involved with [disabled performance artists' group] Sins Invalid? 

Sins Invalid was started by a group of friend, Patty Berne, Todd Herman, Amanda Coslor and I back in 2004. Patty Berne and I, both people of color with disabilities, were out at a beautiful dance event and we both turned to each other and asked why don’t we see ourselves as disabled people of color with strong politics on the San Francisco Bay Area’s performance stage. [We carry out our cultural work with an] intersectional framework of holding all identities of people who were left out of the disability rights movement.

Who are some hip-hop artists you’re listening to, and who are some disabled artists you’re into right now?

Most Hip-Hop artists I listen to are more political artists like Queen Latifah, Sista Souljah, Public Enemy, Missy Elliot, MF GRIMM, Immortal Technique, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Bambu, Sugar Hill Gang, Brother Ali, Brown Buffalo. I’m loving my Krip-Hop peeps like Kounterclockwise, Preechman, Wheelchair Sports Camp, Miss Money, Fezo and the list goes on. I just wish I could find more disabled women in Hip-Hop.

What are you working on now, yourself?

Trying to write a book on Krip-Hop Nation. Writing for Poor Magazine and IDEAL Magazine.

And what are you working on with Krip Hop Nation?

We are putting out a CD on police brutality/profiling against people with disabilities and a film documentary on this topic. We also working on a film documentary on the late Joe Capers who changed the sounds of early Hip-Hop in Oakland, CA. Lastly, Krip-Hop Nation is a part of Neli Latson’s cultural movement to free him from [unjust] incarceration because of profiling. Neli is a Black young man with autism who is locked up for just sitting on a library lawn and protecting himself from abusive police. Krip-Hop Nation and Martin Vale has teamed up to do a CD for Neli of all types of music from nondisabled and disabled musicians. Krip-Hop Nation will be at University of Washington in Seattle on February 10 and 11. Big news is we might be attending the Paralympics in London and returning to DADA Festival in Liverpool, UK all in the late Summer or early Fall of 2012 and a lot more.

PS. RIP HEAVY D

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