Daron Murphy is co-founder of the award-winning progressive creative agency and cultural impact firm ART NOT WAR. As a writer, producer, director, and creative director, Daron has produced hundreds of videos for over 30 of the world’s biggest social justice organizations, earning more than 500 million views and billions of media impressions for his work. He has written and directed dozens of pieces starring notable artists like Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Naomi Watts, Rosario Dawson, Daveed Diggs, Jack Black, Rosie Perez and many more. Daron is also a musician and composer for film and television, most recently scoring Henry Louis Gates, Jr’s Emmy Award-nominated PBS documentary series, Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise. He composed musical scores for the feature-length documentary films, and . He has scored short films like, , directed by Julia Stiles and starring Zooey Deschanel and Bring them Home, directed by Oliver Stone. Daron has written on popular culture for publications like The Wall Street Journal, Men’s Vogue, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Huffington Post, I.D., Entertainment Weekly, and Vibe. And before becoming a creative for social justice, he was an editor and producer of the pioneering mid-1990s web site Word.com, one of the earliest and most influential online magazines. In 2019, Daron served as a fellow of the NSquare Innovators Network--a cross-sector group of technologists, creatives, diplomats, and policy experts working together to prototype and pilot breakthrough approaches to global nuclear nonproliferation. In his earlier life as a musician, Murphy was known for his work as a guitarist, harmonica player and songwriter with the retro-soul rock group, , whose members feature wife Laura Dawn and electronic music icon Moby. He toured Europe with Moby, as his guitar player, in 2005. From 1992 until 1995, Murphy was the primary songwriter, singer, and guitarist, for indie rock band . In 1998, Murphy formed , a short lived 60s garage-style dance/rock ensemble. In 2000, Murphy co-founded , with primary songwriter and vocalist Andy Boose—a cabaret/rock/disco project in which each member of the band assumed the identity of a sleazy eurotrash decadent. Murphy's assumed name in the group was Dolce Fino. Around the same time, Murphy was wed to singer and political activist Laura Dawn.
