My Ph.d. goal and my lifelong work is to add to the research, writings, books, music and visual arts , awareness locally and internationally of the accomplishments of disabled people especially Black disabled musicians in the music arenas from Blues to Hip-Hop and other venues of the arts and activism. As of today in 2025 there is not one community space like museums in this country and around the world that focus and research on Hip-Hop artists with disabilities.

Because of disability activism of the late 1970’s and 1980’s only recently academia have been pushed to have disability studies. You would think that disability, Black and Hip-Hop studies would explore each other but it hasn’t thus far. Also knowing that the vast majority of disabled people would not make it into higher education aka undergrad and graduate makes sense that there needs to be a public space that provides political education, research, cultural expression, mentorship and archiving Hip-Hop arena from a disability perspective historically, politically and how that can change society locally and globally.

Although my graduate research is for the community, I also see my research builds on all three academic fields from disability, Black and Hip-Hop studies. My writings and books have been taught from high schools to colleges. Recently my writings on Hip-Hop and disability have been published in Hip-Hop textbook like the recent UCLA’s publication, Freedom Moves Hip Hop Knowledges, Pedagogies, and Futures by H. Samy Alim (Editor), Jeff Chang (Editor), Casey Wong (Editor) January 2022 and the That’s The Joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader, Authors: Murray Forman, Mark Anthony Neal, Regina N. Bradley in November 2023. Beyond Hip-Hop studies, in 2021 I Co-wrote a curriculum and taught for a semester at University of San Francisco on Research, Teaching and Collaboration for Disability Justice by using my book, Black Disabled Art History 101 and from 2021 to present I’ve been involved in establishing Intersectional Disability Studies Strand (IDSS) under the existing Institute for Emancipatory Education (IEE) at San Jose State University. The (IDSS) at San Jose State University serves as a community-engaged, culturally sustaining space that centers disability visibility and disability as an intersectional identity.

My research once again can be looked at as theory building on already known theories in fields of Hip-Hop and disability for example building on Dr. H. Samy ALIM concept of Hip-Hop Nation Language with Krip-Hop terminology like Afro-Krip and adding to DisCrit: Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education (Disability, Culture, and Equity Series) by SUBINI Annamma with my masters thesis on Krip-Hop pedagogy. Also looking at community scholarship like the real lives and writings that builds on Poor Magazine who wrote and teaches from, Poverty Scholarship Poor People-Led Theory, Art, Words & Tears Across Mama Earth and disabled community scholars like Alice Wong who wrote a chapter in a book, Centering Diverse Bodyminds in Critical Qualitative Inquiry. This book is important how to do my research because it puts the persons with disability center in qualitative research and the methods that are traditionally used for example as we use to talk about interviewing it was thought of two or group of people show up with recording equipments but now we have zoom and other online sources thus making interviewing process more accessible to disabled researchers and graduate students with disabilities like me. Doing qualitative research in a digital world makes it accessible. There is also a journal article entitled, Making Qualitative Research Inclusive: Methodological Insights in Disability Research by Annmaree Watharow, MBBS, M PSYCH MED, PhD and Sarah Wayland, BSW, PhD that I will used their accessible ways to do my qualitative research.

Is my research and what comes out of it feasible?

Throughout my years of organizing, writing, event planning and now academic studying on music and disability has led me to notice a lack of a physical place that can put out reports, articles, books, studies at the same time be a place of creative expression of disabled Hip-Hop artists aka the Krip-Hop Institute. So at this point in my past research we already know that the need is there so the major question in my upcoming research is to get data from high profiles like university of Cape Town and big organizations and community leaders to shape the data coming out of this research to convince others especially long term funders to see that the research and cultural expression that will come out of the Krip-Hop Institute will have long positive effects on communities, the Hip-Hop culture and its multi-billion dollar market so they would feel comfortable to ongoing support, partnership and funding.

Questions like, is there a market for this can be answered by looking at the World Bank and the United Nation reports saying that people with disabilities are the largest minority group worldwide and we also know that governments under title thirty of the Convention On The Rights Of Persons With Disabilities (CRPD) have to guaranty that people with disabilities are participating in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport and this includes the arts. The Krip-Hop institute can fulfill the implementation of article thirty under the UN Treaty on Disability. Matter-of-fact Luciana Viegas of Black Disabled Lives Matter of Brazil talked about Krip-Hop Nation and working together with us in music and advocacy of Black Brazilians with disabilities at the United Nations conference of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, COSP. It took place from June 12th to June 18th.

There are a couple spots of weakness of the project and one is this research and institute will be the first of its kind so it will make it hard to measure results comparing it to other models. Although people with disabilities are the largest minority group in the world, they are also the poorest so the financial support in the beginning must be a combination of outside support like the UN, government, business, universities and community organizations. Timing, although we coincide with the Olympics and Paralympics coming to Los Angeles, we have only four years to get support to build this institute. Lastly the voice, rights and cultural expressions of people with disabilities still lack media, political and business attention making it hard to pitch the creation and need of a Krip-Hop Institute.

The Krip-Hop Institute can evaluate its work in many ways one important way is to stay in contact with Hip-Hop artists looking at their growth in the Hip-Hop industry, to establish a media awareness campaign, to become an educational arm in disability in the Hip-Hop industry and culture, to write reports on the status of disabled Hip-Hop artists and to continue to be a place of mentorship, cultural expression and education locally and worldwide.