We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ololade Gbadamosi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ololade below.

Ololade, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

One of my most meaningful projects that I take pride in is The Uprizing Krump event. Krump is a street style dance created in South Central Los Angeles California. It is an acronym for Kingdom Radically Uplifting Mighty Praise. Growing up in Minnesota our only access to Krump was either watching it via YouTube, or attending a Krump event either in California or other areas in the US.

Tou Saiko Lee, Herb Johnson III and I created The Uprizing Krump event in 2014 to help promote Krump in Minnesota. After 2014 Herb and I took over majority of the leadership role to revamp MNK ( Minnesota Krump community) and The Uprizing event to be one of the most sought after Krump events in the nation.

The Uprizing Krump event was filled with a free weekend full of performances, dance workshops and exchanges between local and guest artists to help 1. Further the dance community, 2. Educate the community on Krump history and culture .

Our last event was this past June of 2023 and was very successful locally.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Ololade Gbadamosi. I go by the aliases “O” & “Gambit”, and I am a Dancer, Educator, Arts Administrator & Event Planner/Coordinator. As a dancer I got into, Krump in 2007. Krump stands for Kingdom Radically Uplifting Mighty Praise and it was created in the early 2000’s in South Central LA. I was in my basement just looking up dancing videos and I saw one titled “Tight Eyez , the buckest of them all. The setting of the video looked more like a house party, but people were battling and I was instantly hooked to the point that I was looking up more information on Krump and Krump battles.

Since then I have come a long way of venturing into different avenues with Krump. I have been able to travel America to different Krump events, meet and create relationships with very important figures in Krump, become one of the main leaders in the Minnesota Krump (MNK) community, and become a great event planner/coordinator that would translate into a career in arts administration.

As an event coordinator and 1/2 the creator of The Uprizing Krump event, this event would be one of my most prod achievement with my partner Herb Johnson III. We both put in the same amount of work to create a free local event to help expose our Krump community to Krump culture and different Krump communities’ around the nation. We bring an experience to local community dance members that were unable to travel and had a lack of financial access. Our last 2 events were in 2021 an 2023, they were both very successful and are very sought after in not just Minnesota, but in the nation.

The next one is planned for June of 2025.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

For me, it is to have one of the best Krump events in the nation. The type of event that is affordable for everyone to come and either dance, witness dancing or learn about the dance style of Krump. We also want everyone to experience a great time with great people and energy. Our special guests that we invite always speak volumes on how professional Herb and I are with the them and The Uprizing event.

Our last 2 events (2021 & 2023), everyone who was involved had great things to say about it and are always ready for the next one. They loved the presentation of the event, that it was generally free and witnessing different dancers that are competing display their artistry. The also loved the fact that it ended at a reasonable time to a point where the DJ started playing different genres of music and essentially turned it into a party where everyone can dance and enjoying themselves.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I would say the process. Experiencing all the long hours and days planning, working and paying for things to put out this great product that people enjoy. I like seeing it all come together to make a bigger picture. Seeing your creation come to life after all the hard work is definitely rewarding because….well you made it to the finish line and you get to present to the world.

Then when you present and people enjoy it and give you feedback (whether good or bad), it makes the work that you’ve done more meaningful, because you can always focus on the good parts and what to keep, but also know what to work on when it’s time to start the process for the next project.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @mnkrump
• Youtube: MN Krump

Image Credits
Photos by Talia McWright