A Rockford creator who said he didn’t have the right support in his youth is using his platform to help others.
Brian Harrington is a poet, rapper and visual artist. He is professionally known as King Moosa. He said his grandmother inspired the second part of that name.
“My mother, and my grandmother were arguing about my name,” he explained, “and so she wanted my name to be 'Moosa,' and my mom just wanted to give me my father's name.”
These days Harrington prefers to go by Moosa. He said he recently learned something about the name. It is the Islamic name for Moses, usually spelled Musa.
This west-side native said basketball was his first love. He was a curious child and hung with different crowds hoping to find his place. Like most children, he said he wanted to be accepted. This longing led him down a path to early adulthood.
At the age of 14 he was asked if he would take part in selling a gun.
“It was a gun deal that went bad," he said. "There was no trust. I didn't know what I was doing. The person buying the gun didn't know what they were doing. Unfortunately, an accidental shooting happened where he lost his life.”
The person was 19-year-old Bradley Berogen. Moosa said authorities wanted to push a different narrative. He said the story changed to accusations of a robbery and intentional killing. He said he went from having a public defender to a private lawyer. This lawyer gave him a glimpse of light but then came the shadow.
“I was going to go to trial on a Monday. That Friday he came and visited me,” Moosa said. “And his tone changed. And his tone went from optimistic to pessimistic to saying that like, ‘I don't think that I fit the best chance going in here representing you with the evidence I have.’”
Moosa said in fear he took a 25-year plea deal. He originally went to the Illinois Youth Center in Joliet. At the age of 17 he transferred to an adult prison and after a couple of more transfers he ended up in the Dixon Correctional Center. Governor JB Pritzker offered Moosa clemency in 2020. Moosa said a relative of Berogen reached out and told him they are not angry anymore, and they understood what happened.
“That gave me some, some sense of solace,” he said.
A couple of years before Moosa was released from prison he took part in a creative endeavor at the correction center that was founded by Brian Beals, Moosa and other inmates. It was called the Dixon Theater Workshop. Moosa said the first mention of the idea was rejected.
“The warden had denied us,” he explained, “and she was like, ‘No, that ain't something that I'm doing in my prison. Like y'all not going to be rapping in my prison.’ And so, God, happened.”
A correction officer heard about the idea and said if he was in the right position he would let them move forward with the project. That individual later became the jail chaplain. He approved the project and was able to convince the warden that it was important. The group was told to rewrite their proposal and change the focus from rap to spoken word and theater.
Moosa and other co-founders taught themselves how write plays and act. The pilot performance took place in February 2018.
“We blew everybody away," Moosa said. "And blowing everybody away, [the warden] was like, 'we need more of that stuff.' And she was like, 'we just need more theater stuff.'"
Moosa produced a song called “13 Summers.” He said his talents captured the eye of others in the industry.
The first person was Neal Howard, who goes by DJ Neal. Moosa said this Rockford DJ has a studio that he runs out of his basement.
The other person was Chicago rap artist, Vic Mensa. Moosa met him through a friend.
He said he called Mensa’s phone from jail and rapped while the artist was on a New York Radio show.
“So, upon my release, last year, we went back to New York," he said, "and made that thing a 360-dream come true too."
The two were Sway’s Universe. Here’s a clip.
Recently, he reached out to the Illinois Humanities and was given a $2,500 grant. He recently worked with YouthBuild, YES Club, and Kikifer’s Entrepreneurial school and put on a talent show that allowed local youth to showcase their gifts and get paid for it.
Moosa continues to work with the jail program, but it is now called “The Mud Theater Project.” He said it is now in two facilities and the group is working on getting it started in others.
Moosa calls himself an “artivist.” This term combines the words artist and activist.
Moosa said he hopes Rockford focuses on healing and uses that as a crime prevention tactic.
“I think we need to firmly ask ourselves what, what are our goals, and then be able to go correlate them,” he added, “goes to our elected officials and let them know where we at and that we don't necessarily think that putting people in prison can better our community.”
The artivist said his goal is to use his art as a vehicle to make the community a better place.
