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by Leroy Moore Jr./illin n chillin
Krip-Hop:How did you get interested in music?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W.): I know by my parents, that I liked music from the beginning, my father had to dance with me all night when I was a baby. When he was not around or had no time to dance with me I never wanted to sleep. I liked Big Bopper, Little Richard and the James Last Orchestra! As far I can remember, when I was a youth boy 13-14 years old, I had friends who where older then me and where allowed to drive a car. We were listening to house of pain, cypress hill, funkdoubiest, das EFX, public enemy (nr1), black sheep, N.W.A., Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog, and so on. I always tried to catch the words and rappin with it. Today I think I must have fucked up the nerves of my friends completely. I honestly got to say that I’m still doing that shit for practicing my voice! And I’m still getting on the nerves of my friends and my woman when we’re having a ride in the car. When I was 15, I remember that we have been to Spain for holiday. The city and the beach were about 5 miles away from our house. I walked that fucking distance about 3-5 times a day. forward and backward. Because I was bored so much, I started to beatbox on the way. I also started with freestyle rappin on the way. As I returned home I wrote my first text. I had a close friend this time. He was a social worker. He gave me the link to his friend who was the manager of bass reflex. I called and visited him. He passed me through to the producer of bassreflex "D-Baze from DeepswingMusic (SickTunes)" We recorded my first track. It was "freedom and peace". It was all in English even I criticize myself now, my English was fucked up at this time. That was the reason to write German lyrics. I got to know my brother man Mr. Rossi and Dj 4802. Together we called ourselves Linguistix. We had a couple of life gigs here and there and we published "Vorhof zum Mond" on lockerecords (small label in Auxburg founded by Bassreflex). We had a few possitracks released on the sampler "Untergrundsheiss" , "Bucketghost" and "horsemen" and got this collabo thing started called "die Bruderschaft". Lockerecords was shut down because of financial problems and I tried to start something up on my one.. That was the idea of handicapped-art-works e.v. I started to built up my own studio plans. And now I’m independent and can do the music I want.. Still working together with some of the mentioned artist. That was a small version of "How I started my music thing"!
Krip-Hop:Tell us your feelings about the music industry in Germany?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W.): I think the music industry in Germany is more then fucked up. It’s only about money, nothing else. Almost every act that earns money is casted. Independent musicians and labels like bassreflex or lockerecords are hold small by the gema and by the industry. The big shops like "müller" or "W.O.M" only buy cds and records when they have it on their list. You only come on the list if you have a major deal. Only the artists who are sold by these shops have the chance to sell big numbers of copies and so go to the top ten or better I’ve heard that the big shops order so much copies of a certain artist, that the record company sold a certain big amount. Because of the amount of sold cds to these shops they already got in the sale charts and already get a golden or platinum status for the project without selling a single copy out to any customer. Next day you’ll hear in all media this artist is a new entry in the charts already got a platinum status and so on. Everybody think, yeah man I need this cd because it’s in the charts and it has platinum status it must be great. That's the moment you’ll hear the fucking song on every radio station and MTV is playing it on and on. That’s only strategy to sell more and more, but it is fake. The big labels spend so much money on commercials, videos and hosting, so no independent artist can do the same. One announcement in the hip-hop-magazine "Juice" costs up to 10000,00 Euro. Only if you are rich enough to pay the same amount of money for your project you can get known by the public.
The same shit with the most radio shows and MTV Germany. You only see artists with a major in the background. They also work with certain play lists. So even the money of the gema is only for those artists. It works like that. They take the money of all artists who are member by the "gema". Every artist who likes to make professional records or cd's got to be a member of the "gema". He has to pay a certain amount for each copy manufactured. The problem is, the gema only pays money for public showing of your cd or record project. And if there are play lists on radio and on television and they play only major company projects, all the money of the gema is going to those major deal artists. Plus all big discos and clubs in Germany play the top 10 upward and downward. You see the Gema is taking money from the small and gives it only to those who are already big. It's a turn around Robin Hood process. The big companies earn the most money again. Years ago, an artist like me had a chance to make a good demo and send it out to all labels and get a major deal. But it seems to me that they don't like to share so much. If you have the rights of your beats and your lyrics they cannot take so much profit of the artist. I guess the artist got about 60% of the income of the whole project if he got all rights of his cd or record project. Now a days the big labels found out that they prefer casting. They make castings for new bands and cast somebody good looking and dancing. They make the beats with their own producers, they write the lyrics with their own ghostwriters and they teach their casting artists everything and make their music sound professional and commercial, and they already got contracts with the media mafia. That's their new way to go, to produce music without giving the artists any rights on the product. They produce the beat, they’ll keep the rights. The lyrics are written by them, they’ll keep the rights and so on. They pay the artist between 5% and 15% of the income. You see the difference. With an independent Rapper like me, writing my own shit, producing my own beats and everything, they earn about 40% and with a casting star they will earn up to 95% of the whole sales. There is a little bit independent music in Germany which has made it to the media, but all those artists who made it, came out more then 15 years ago.. The last 10 years the musicians who got famous and had their success on their own where not very numerous. Those, now a days established performers who made it on their own in the golden times 15 years ago they have only interest to push their close friends out, one after the other. If you don’t know those guys personally they won’t let you in. They only support new emcees if they come from the same click! So if you are not caste and you don’t know "king cool savage" or "die fantastischen 4" personally, you can’t get to a well-known artist in this land. If you ask me about disabled artists in the German music industry, sorry but I cannot imagine a single one who got famous. The problem for me is, I don’t like the famous rappers and reggae artists in Germany so much. There are a only very view who are good. The popular German Hip-Hop in this days is like those rappers rappin that they are dangerous gangsters, don’t leave their home without a weapon, taking all kinds of hard drugs and talk about females like they where all bitches. That is what the media makes our kiddies want to hear and the kiddie’s wannabe. Those rappers are no real gangsters they come from good parents have been to the best schools and so on. But they think they have to copy American gangster hip-hop and rap this shit in German lyrics without having any background, even it is unreal, but the matter is that those kiddies who grow up on the streets 4 real take it for real. And they wants to be like those cool rappers rapping unreal gangsters shit. And so we just see a whole generation of kiddies’ gangsters screaming out for the bad motherfucker for example Sido. The Kidd gangsters will do some of the illegal shit sometimes and will go to prison and fuck up his live with drugs and crime meanwhile this bad motherfucker for example Sido is doing the Host for a show on TV called Pop stars - Just for girls. You see, that’s the reason why I hate the German music industry and those German famous hip-hop idols would like to be gangsters and porno stars so much. It’s time for something new. It’s time for handicapped-art-works, MWD and Krip-Hop project over here in Germany, man. Our big chance to give those kiddis something fresh with a message what is real and true!
Krip-Hop:Your disability how does it come in play in your work?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W.): I’m a M.W.D. That means Emcee with disability. In my case it’s a progressive muscle disease of the type limb girdle. Good luck on the one hand for me, because that type does not effect my lounge or heart like other types for example “duchene” or “Bekka K.” does.. So it was possible for me to do music and to perform live on stage. It was always a problem for me to climb a stage. Those stages are not built for handicapped artists! Meanwhile I was rappin on the mike I had to take care that I keep on my legs. It’s always a little bit sadness when I see other emcees jumping around or dancing to rock the people knowing to have only the flow and the voice left to rock the stage show. But that was the time I tried to hide my disability. Now I can accept it better and plan for my future shows to go there by wheelchair. I hope my friends will carry me up the stage by the way. But that very cool over here in Germany. The most of the people are likely to give a helping hand. 2001 we founded the association handicapped-Art-works e.V. We always got positive feedback from the people when we organized open-airs or other parties and the crowd always loved our handicapped-art-works live performance. We were always about 5-10 artist on stage. Disabled singers and dj's, percussionists and different musicians with a w/o disability. I think that gave me the self-confidence to stay to my disability on stage. So now it’s no matter for me to rock a stage out of the wheelchair! To answer your question completely, I must say it’s always a big problem for me to find a good job to earn money. Like above mentioned it’s not easy to get a record deal as disabled artist. We got no lobby in the music business and on the usual working market. All written laws we got against discrimination or for equality are very nice but none cares for them. No boss of a big record label and no boss in the economic system, too.
Sad but true we got to watch out for the exceptions. What makes me really angry about it, when there are elections you can hear the speeches of the politicians promising to increase their efforts for disabled people and honoring our social system but after the elections you see no increased engagement for disabled people, you don’t see anything of a great social system. Personally I’m still fighting for my hydraulic chair to make the getting up possible for me again. I’m fighting now for more then two years and became the letter that our social system won’t pay for it. Now I got to go to a social court of justice to fight for it again. What’s happen to those people having not so much energy to fight for their rights. They never will get their right! So I see many good things are written down in law but are not like they’re written down. For example in Germany you can get a ID for your disability. I was fighting for mine about 2 years and another two years for a parking allowance even everybody could see that I wasn’t able to get out the car and walk long distances. It was a dangerous thing in the slushy wintertime, but noon cared. That’s how it is in Germany.
Krip-Hop: Handicapped-Arts-Work what is it and what do you do?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W.): Handicapped-Art-Works e.V. is an association to support all kinds of disabled artists. We were founded in 2001. Since 2003 we work close together with w.a.c.h. productions. Handicapped artists can get member and work in the studio for free to record their voice. They can get beats of w.a.c.h. productions for a special prize. We use our contacts to help those artists and support them as good as we can. We had two cds released. “Binkiwoi – Wir haben wir heissen dir?” and „Ridinghigher-Sampler“. We try to organize gigs for our artists or try to get their songs on mixtapes, samplers or on the radio. We organized own parties and big open-airs! We’re helping painting artists with workshops. We help our artists with the making of their myspace page. We got the www.myspace.com/handicappedartworks profile to show all kinds of artworks of our handicapped members. We try to provide the public with information’s of unknown diseases. We organize special happenings like for example “A day of the open door” and welcome everybody to mush down all of the walls and to built bridges between disabled people and people w/o disability. At our events we always try to offer something interesting for everybody and especially the kids. We had already jumping castles, make-up for kids, storytelling, and magic theatre, different kinds of sports or alternative healing methods on our events. We help disabled people by our own contacts or experiences we’ve made with advices and active help with their individual problems on the telephone, by visits and via Internet. We try to find solutions within the different qualities of our handicapped art works members. One is a producer, the other a dancer, the other a painter, organizing talent or DJ. So we got professional people in different fields. If you’re a member and need for example a dj for your show, you’ll have a good link to many djs through our association. Next time the dj need a cover design for his new cd. He can use the association to link up a graphic worker. The members should give other members free services or special prices within our group, so when they come in need of something they’ll get free services or special offers too.
We’re always open for ideas of other members. If they got plans for example for organizing a concert, they have a platform of professional people they could asked for help. If you’re a member and need for example money for flyers for your party, we’ll start a discussion with all members of our association and if more people are for it then against it we could look out for sponsoring of the industry for you or give you some money out of our association. In most cases our association can get better conditions from companies as a single player. That’s why our association is a welfare charity thing and officially accepted by the state. We have to spend all incoming money for the association self or for welfare charity projects with a good sense in the background. That opens many doors. Another reason was the idea that one name like Handicapped Art Works covering many artists can get known faster in public then a single artist without lobby. And when we got the name big every member artist can profit from it for his solo projects, too.
Krip-Hop:Who supports your work?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W.): At the moment DeepSwing Music supports us with beats... The Combay computer Store in Augsburg sponsored us a scale overview 22” white star monitor. W.A.C.H. Production is doing studio work for us and our artists. My lovely mum, Karola Ortner, Kinesiological Advice Center, was sponsoring us with money. Steinberg was sponsoring us a free version of cubase and wave lab and cubase instruments. The city of Friedberg was giving us an financial sponsoring in our first year. The European commission sponsored W.A.C.H. in 2001 to built up the studio.
Krip-Hop: What do you think about Krip-Hop?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W.): Wow, it’s a great idea and gave me a lot of inspiration for my own projects. Your first radio show was more then great! I’m so exited to receive the first mixtapes and your book. Your Internet activities are very impressing, too. It’s a very cool project and as I mentioned you already brought a very big range of disabled artists worldwide together. I see that the Krip-Hop project will rise in the future to one of the biggest platforms for handicapped artists worldwide. Disabled artists from everywhere can step into contact and can work together. They can help each other out. The Krip-Hop project is spreading out knowledge to all people worldwide and it’s giving the word to all disabled artists to speak to the public and talk about their matters. It makes it hard for the industry to oversee us permanently. I’m proud to work with the Krip-Hop project, because it’s no fake and no posing and it’s very real. I must say, Leroy, you are making big things my man. It will mush up those boarders between disabled and healthy people. I’d guess, that the Krip-Hop project got the power to change your fucked up social system in the States, too. And I think if the industry doesn’t want to support disabled artists, disabled artists got to support themselves. What we need is a own strong lobby for disabled artists and the Krip-Hop project as well as the handicapped-art-works project in Germany is doing the first steps to built up such a strong lobby. We got to keep on working that shit out so the industry can’t overlook us any longer! Another positive effect is, that charity aspect of the Krip-Hop project. Information, good experienced advices and who knows, that day will come and we earn a lot of money with our projects then we could use the money for other charity projects and support the poorest of the poor. Anyway I hope for an overwhelming future development for the Krip-Hop project and for many projects we can work out together. Best regards, best wishes, keep on rising Krip-Hop project.!!
Krip-Hop:How are disabled musicians treated in Germany?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W): That depends on how you mean it. I think in Germany the youth and party people are very cool with it. They support disabled artists when they perform publicly very nice. They helped me out climbing so many stages. They jumped and screamed even I was not able to jump like Anthony B. on the stage. That’s very positive in Germany. As a disabled artist you can feel the Crowd is always supporting you and helping you out when you’re in need.
The other negative side is the industry. It starts with manufacturing stages, which make it easier for disabled artists. Clubs and Disco’s should think about that matter, too. Back stages or band rooms should be located so that wheelchair drivers can reach them, too. Secondly, the music industry is pure discrimination over here in Germany. They just take good-looking, good dancing smiley faces under contract. Like I wrote for your first question, when I think of a famous disabled artist out of Germany I can’t imagine a single one. O.k. we got this albino folks singer called “Heino”. And that was it. Nothing more. There is time to change, too, but that must be started in the head of all media users. They are so fucking used to see perfect stars without any handicap on stage. They must go deeper and watch more on details and not just watching the surface. Sometimes I as an disabled artist feel like a fat lady. I imagine it’s nearly the same. We’re living in the beauty generation 90-60-90. You can see all this sexy models on posters at all bus stops and shit. How must a fat lady feel? How must a disabled artist feel watching all these perfect performers with every step fitting to the show. It’s almost the same experience.
Krip-Hop:What are some projects H.C.A.W. doing now and what are your future plans?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W.): We’re planning to make a meeting of the H.C.A.W. members for Christmas. Every member shall get a couple of working utensil like for example a handicapped-art-works ID card to show potential sponsors. Everybody shall get useful information to work with. We’re just waiting for a release of one of our artists on the new Auxburg Massive Mixtape.
We’re hoping to increase our collaboration work with the Krip-Hop Project and get successful things started. We’re working on different live performances for the next festival season. We’re working on new demos for myspace and to show out to the industry. We want to offer beatbox, break-dance and graffiti workshops. We’ll be active on events in our region to present ours self by a handicapped art works stand. We’re trying to organize 2 events at the moment to give our painters the possibility to show their pictures to a wide publicity.
W.a.c.h. prod. is always improving the studio possibilities to improve our recording quality..
Krip-Hop:How can people get HCAW's merchandise?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W.): Just take a look on the offers on
www.myspace.com/handicappedartworks . On the left side you’ll find links of the Internet profiles of our members. You can check out a lot of music and painting. If you interested now, just leave us a message on the H.C.A.W. profile or send your email to
handicappedartworks@live.de. We’ll get back to you for sure. You can order the Binkiwoi CD via email, too. It’s 8,00$ + packing and delivery. You can get the direct link to the artist by email and he’ll state the prize for his product.
Krip-Hop:Who are your favorite musicians?
d:WashTee of Handicapped- Art-Works (H.C.A.W.): o.k. my favorite rappers are Bassreflex from Auxburg, Germany. Roots Manuva and Ninja Tune from England, Iam, Mc Solaar and NTM from France.
From the States I like Cypress Hill, Dj Muggs, Psychrealm, Sick Jacken, Funkdobiest, House of Pain, Public Enemy, NWA, The Goats, Beatnuts, Busta Rhymes, Gravediggaz and WuTang, the Roots, Lords of the Underground, The Whooligans, Heltah Skeltah, Ony X, Das EFX, Leroy Moore aka the Black Kripple and so on….
I like listening to Hip-Hop, Krip-Hop, Reggae, Dancehall, D`&´B, Soul, Blues, Italian Music, Crossover, Dub, Merengue, Salsa, Calipso and many more.
I like the bands house of riddim, nicetime int., Steve Alaboh and the uprisers, Auxburg Massiv; Natty Rag, Japhetsound, Rolling, Soundcontrol,Rootdadem, Headcornerstone, Preskool (David Walters), Deepswing, Bassreflex, Dichtergilde, Chefetage, Dj Sket, Ishen Rockers and all musicians who know me like I know you and just wanna say hello by the way!
kriphopproject@yahoo.com
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