“The blues look like me”

Photograph of Leroy Moore by Erick Matus.

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“The blues look like me”

by Leroy F. Moore Jr., Charles L. Hughes
Southern Cultures, Vol. 29, No. 1: Disability

“Krip-Hop really stems from our ancestors, saying that we’ve been here and that hip-hop artists with disabilities matter. We’ve been here since the blues, [since] jazz.”

Leroy F. Moore Jr. has long stood at the intersection of disability arts, advocacy, and activism over a wide-ranging and influential career. He cofounded (with Keith Jones) the Krip-Hop Nation, a worldwide collective of artists and activists working to amplify the work of disabled creators that has become a crucial voice in expanding the presence of disability within the culture. Krip-Hop Nation is deeply informed by Moore’s long career of activism in the worlds of disability justice (a movement and philosophy that Moore helped create) and racial justice. Krip-Hop, like Moore himself, is particularly insistent on confronting issues like police violence, sexual harassment, and employment discrimination that are disproportionately experienced by disabled people.

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