May 13, 2014
Ray Moore and the Hip Hop Helmet

When American artist Ray Moore walked into a Nutcase show booth at the ISPO sporting goods show in Munich in January this year, he wasn’t really sure what he was going to say. And so he said this to the first Nutcase employee he encountered: “Have you ever thought of working directly with artists?”

It turns out that Nutcase has collaborated with artists on small-run helmet designs, and when the Nutcases saw Ray’s expressive, poetry-slam artistic style, everybody agreed a new partnership was in order.

Ray, a Munich-based native of Mississippi, first came to Germany when he was stationed there in the US Army from 1990 – 1993.

Working as a studio music writer, producer and graphic artist was Ray’s living, and the connection between music and art is his life, with hip hop music a special inspiration.

Amazingly (even to Ray himself) he only transitioned to being a full-time studio artist three years ago . He regrets that his youth didn’t include formal art education or much access to art. Visiting museums or art exhibits wasn’t part of his upbringing.

Now, however, Ray lives in his studio. Turning on the tunes – hip hop, soul, or ‘old funk’ with Sun Ra as a favorite artist – Ray faces the canvas every day. His bold graphic forms and word plays have garnered comparisons to the American artist Basquiat.

“I’m trying not to control the message,” he said. “It’s the groove, the mood, the flowing together that happens, that’s what I’m going for in making art.”

Nutcase is adapting Ray’s work shown here into a helmet that we plan to sneak-peak preview this summer:

To check out some of Ray’s work, look here:

Images: http://ray-moore.tumblr.com/archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/raymooremunich