Larry Ware II aka Priest Da Nomad, is one of the pioneers of independent Hip Hop in Washington D.C., and the re-emergence of the historic U street arts scene in the 1990s. He first started publicly performing and rocking college parties in 1992 in DC nightclubs, when through a then mutual manager LaMont “Monte” Wanzer, Priest got under the wing of Hip Hop icon Bizmarkie, kicking off what would be a life long relationship until Biz’s death in 2021, and also appears on the “All Up in the Biz” documentary about Biz’s life. Priest was at the forefront of the hip hop theatre movement as a member of the groundbreaking play “Rhyme Deferred”, along with the late great Chadwick Boseman and Apollo Theatre producer Kamilah Forbes. Priest has made appearances on BET’s Rap City, WUSA9 Great Day Washington, Voice of America, and all DC area mainstream urban radio and college radio stations, as well as Sirius XM. He has been written up in publications such as the Source, Billboard magazine, Sister to Sister, Rap Pages, Blaze, Washington Post, Washington Times, and numerous Washington City Paper articles, including a cover story by national best selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates. Priest was also the subject of a book “Hip Hop as
Performance and Ritual” by ethnomusicologist Dr. William E. Smith, which dealt with jazz and hip hop improvisation links to Africa. Priest is now making his directorial debut, connecting the vastness of the Washington D.C. urban arts history in a new documentary “I Was the Weirdo”, which uses his 30+ year story to shed light on the little known U street hip hop and arts subculture in the nation's capital, and how it was affected by politics, crime, black prominence, and D.C.'s own brand of live music known as Go-Go.