From Hyphy to Lil B, Where’s Krip-Hop Nation? Calling out Lil B From The Bay To LA
Nothing new, Hip-Hop has been pimping disability for a long time, but the Bay Area and LA has lead the way even in the state that has a deep disability activism going back the mid to late 1970’s when Hip-Hop was birthed in New York City. Many Hip-Hop journalists said, the 90s are considered the golden age of rap because it was a time when the genre achieved great popularity and diversified into different sub-genres such as gangsta rap, alternative hip hop, and conscious rap. Gangster Hip-Hop grew by Ice-T of Los Angeles, later expanding in California with artists such as N.W.A and Tupac Shakur connecting to the streets and gangs aka the Bloods and Crips that took the street famous dance, Crip Walk. Like I wrote in my recent short essay, Crip/Krip in Black History Through Music, Dance to The LA Streets, I point out my letter writing to Tookie William where he confirmed to me where the term Crip came from and yes it came from a member of the gang who had a physical disability.
It was in 1986 that we saw the explosion of predominantly West Coast gangsta rap with N.W.A in the late 80s and Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg in 1993 Although in LA Gangster Hip-Hop era was mid 1980’s into the late 1990’s, in the San Francisco Bay Area the hyphy culture was emerging in the late 1990s in Oakland before rising to prominence throughout the wider Bay Area in the early 2000s. The Hyphy use disability terminology to refer to getting loose, relaxing and not following society norms with songs like Riding the Yellow Bus, “Go Dumb” and the way out album, Da Dummy Retarded Mexican by Scweez (2006). In the late Christopher Bell, a Black disabled academic scholar, book, Blackness and Disability:Critical Examinations and Cultural Interventions it has a chapter by Moya Bailey entitled, “The Illiest”: Disability as Metaphor in Hip-Hop Music that talks about how the Hyphy Movement use disability terminology. We can’t forget the 1984 movie, Breakin that had a real break dancer (Bosila Bonya) on crutches that was film in LA.
When the Hyphy movement reached its hight in the early 2000’s, Krip-Hop Nation (an international activist and music movement by and for Hip-Hop artists with disabilities) also in the Berkeley Bay Area was born and on major disability art festivals from Liverpool, UK to Toronto, Canada to Germany and South Africa. However the Hyphy Movement in the early 2000’s blew up with their apolitical usage of disability terminology compare to the early Krip-Hop Nation movement. Outside of KPFA radio station in Berkeley, CA. Krip-Hop Nation didn’t reached the media height compare to the Hyphy Movement.
Now today there is another non-disabled Bay Area (Berkeley) rapper who has used disability lingo in a more empowering way, I’m talking about, Lil B. On his 2019 mixtape, The Hunchback of BasedGod has a song entitled, “Artistic or Autistic” and his recent mixtape that dropped on December 26/2023 entitled, Winged Wheelchair Squad. It is interesting that non-disabled Hip-Hop artists in the Bay Area from E40 to Lil B can blow up using disability terminology compare to anyone of Krip-Hop artists who still come in contact with ableism in the music industry. As Krip-Hop Nation continues to attract attention outside of the US, California is showing some love like becoming a graduate student at UCLA and being apart of the new UCLA Hip-Hop initiative because of Krip-Hop. Krip-Hop Nation is shedding light on California’s Hip-Hop history when it comes to disability.
It gets deeper, after finding out about Lil B’s new album, Winged Wheelchair Squad, I took a chance to hit Lil B on twitter and told him about Krip-Hop Nation and my Berkeley roots and yes he hit me back saying, “let’s work together!m” I was excited and sent him my links to my new songs on my YouTube and he hit me back to say “send me a verse!” My nephew recorded my verse in the bathroom and sent it to Lil B. Then nothing. A day later, Lil B wrote back to ask, “what is your budget?” I realized I was being scammed and it hit me that I was talking to a third party after e sent him my verse. I left it right there and kept my verse. It’s a shame that a non-disabled rapper can make an album with disability titles but when a real disabled artist/organizer/founder of a international collective of disabled Hip-Hop artists aka Krip-Hop Nation that started in Berkeley, CA….. hits him back I’m instantly being scammed and then completely being ghost by an artist who put out an album entitled Winged Wheelchair Squad. Whatever!
