{"id":32,"date":"2014-07-01T02:43:33","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T02:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/?p=32"},"modified":"2015-04-20T01:45:44","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T01:45:44","slug":"new-mobility-magazine-4-wheel-city-rapping-rehab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/new-mobility-magazine-4-wheel-city-rapping-rehab\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mobility Magazine – 4 Wheel City: Rapping Rehab"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 1, 2014<\/b><\/span>
\nPublished On\u00a0Newmobility.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the heart of rural Pennsylvania, in a crowded conference ballroom filled with people of all ages and disability types, a hip-hop group from New York City brought the house down. The group, 4 Wheel City, performed gut-wrenching songs about how they became injured \u2014 gun violence \u2014 and also passed along skincare tips \u2014 \u201cYou\u2019ve got to move if you want that pressure sore to improve\/You\u2019re in a wheelchair, you\u2019re not dead \u2014 what?\u201d<\/p>\n

The afterglow from their music lingered for the rest of the 2013 Living Well With a Disability Conference. The next day, workshop and expo participants would randomly sing out, \u201cLift with it, lift with it \u2026 you in the manual \u2026 do a little pressure release for me \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Was conference organizer Sarah Laucks surprised that a hip-hop group had such a positive impact on a conference whose attendees were not a typical audience? \u201cI have never worked with a group that has such a wide base of fans,\u201d says Laucks, who is director of education and events for the Abilities Expo. \u201cIt is so incredibly diverse it amazes me. And academics really love them, that\u2019s unusual. I would think that\u2019s a really hard nut to crack. They bring rap to people who wouldn\u2019t ordinarily listen to rap \u2014 people at the Living Well conference loved the words they were using.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, before the performance began at the Living Well conference, Mario Brown, director for health sciences diversity for the University of Pittsburgh, asked to give a 20-minute presentation on the work that Pitt and 4 Wheel City did together to help reach out to young people and blacks with disabilities.<\/p>\n

And none of this is unusual for the group. For years now they\u2019ve brought what they call \u201crap therapy\u201d into rehab settings and onto school campuses to bring hope and disability awareness to people who may otherwise never hear the message that life with a disability can be sweet.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the group\u2019s favorite audience? \u201cI like working with the young kids because they\u2019re so impressionable and they\u2019re the most enthusiastic when we perform and make some noise,\u201d says 4 Wheel City\u2019s Namel Norris. \u201cBut all the crowds offer something different, so it\u2019s hard to really say. We also do stuff at medical facilities and disability studies venues, and it\u2019s wonderful, too. But I connect with the kids because I was young when I was injured. And I like when I go to a hospital like Mount Sinai and the therapist tells us a person hasn\u2019t come out of their room since injured, but they came to see us perform and it was the first time they talked or smiled since they\u2019ve been there \u2014 that also touches me. Me and Rick talk about that all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I Was Heading Down the Wrong Road<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

4 Wheel City has two members, Namel \u201cTapwaterz\u201d Norris and Ricardo \u201cRickfire\u201d Velasquez. Norris, 33, writes the lyrics and Velasquez, 38, lays down the beats. The two men have a lot in common. Both are paraplegics because of gun violence, both lived in the same Bronx housing projects, and both, before they met each other, did not know anyone else who used a wheelchair. After being injured, both felt shunned by people they used to hang out with. It was difficult \u201cseeing how people pulled away from me \u2014 friends, family members,\u201d says Velasquez on the group\u2019s website. \u201cIt\u2019s not fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

And both love hip-hop.<\/p>\n

\"article_140701\"<\/a>They met after Norris\u2019 mom, Vanessa, saw Velasquez outside his building. \u201cShe approached Rick to be my friend after I came home from Burke Rehab in 1999, because she felt like he could be someone I could talk to because he was in a wheelchair as well,\u201d says Norris, who was 17 when he was shot. \u201cWhen Rick and I first met, we never cried with each other, we just worked on the music. We knew for a fact that music is very powerful and can help people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although both men were injured by gun violence, how and why they were injured differs. Velasquez was hit by a stray bullet while walking home and still has no idea who shot him. Norris, however, was shot accidentally when a gun his cousin had acquired went off. Norris says he accepts some responsibility for what happened to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t the worst kid in the world, but was heading down the wrong road, hanging in a negative crowd, which led to a gun in my cousin\u2019s house and what happened to me,\u201d says Norris. \u201cNot saying I was a bad kid, but at the end of the day I see a lot of young people going down that same road.\u201d<\/p>\n

This insight into his younger self informs Norris\u2019 lyrics, as he knows he has to be his authentic self for the at-risk kids in his audiences to let him in, to let his music help them. \u201cI see a lot of young people going down that same road, and if I\u2019m going to go to a school and speak to a kid or someone who just got injured and they\u2019re going to hear my story and my song, they don\u2019t want to hear someone talk down to them, who they can\u2019t relate to,\u201d says Norris. So he\u2019s real with them. \u201cYou might not like me or what I have to say, or even like my music, but you can\u2019t say I\u2019m bullshitting you, that I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m talking about, that I\u2019ve not been through it. Especially in hip-hop, credibility means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"article_140701_a\"<\/a>Norris has a huge heart for at-risk young people and describes a typical teen this way: \u201cHe\u2019s probably going to school today debating whether he should go to class or not. Maybe he\u2019s a weed smoker or a pipe smoker. He\u2019s not a real bad kid at heart, but probably wants to be the coolest and is under a lot of peer pressure. He probably has a lot of dreams, maybe, but maybe don\u2019t think they can really come true. He may be on the verge of dropping out of school,\u201d says Norris. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty much his mentality and so he\u2019s probably not listening to anyone around him, and hopefully when he sees 4 Wheel City he sees himself in a few years.\u201d Either he will see himself as possibly getting shot, or worse \u2014 dead. \u201cOn the flip side, maybe it\u2019s possible he can accomplish his dream, like Rick and I do, and I hope they see everything is still possible with the right mentality, and everything is possible with the wrong mentality at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

4 Wheel City\u2019s song, \u201cWelcome to Reality \u2014 the G-Mix\u201d is addressed to these kids and draws on Norris\u2019 life experiences. Featuring Snoop Dogg, the song, which can be found on YouTube, opens with the sobering fact that every nine seconds a high school student drops out. \u201cTalking to you, mister\/Mr. Knucklehead messing up in school, mister\/Mr. Head to the desk with the doo-rag on, pants hanging off his ass,\u201d the group raps. \u201cI\u2019m trying to open up your eyes\/before you end up in jail or paralyzed.\u201d<\/p>\n

These guys can say this \u2014 they\u2019ve been there, they have street cred.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not just a record, it\u2019s a movement,\u201d said Snoop Dogg in a statement about rapping with 4 Wheel City. \u201cIt\u2019s a feeling! I\u2019m down with the movement, we are about doing something righteous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norris acknowledges the group is pushing uphill in trying to save these kids. As he knows only too well, guns are a big part of urban culture. \u201cWhere we come from, people don\u2019t talk things out \u2014 they shoot it out, they fight it out, and they end up in wheelchairs or dead,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And he knows it all too well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s Not the Gun Itself<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\u201cTo elaborate, to me guns are the problem, but they\u2019re not the problem so much as the community,\u201d says Norris. \u201cThe problem is the mentality of young people in the community that I come from wanting to be bad and cool and tough. It\u2019s almost like a checkpoint that you have to pass through to become a man. That mentality is the worst part about the whole thing \u2014 most kids go to jail because the guns aren\u2019t legal and they\u2019re shooting each other over dumb stuff. Why would a young person want to have a gun in the first place? Back in the day it used to be bats or knives, but guns are so easily available. And if you have a gun it\u2019s like you\u2019re cool and you\u2019re bad. And who doesn\u2019t want to be cool and bad?\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting shot and paralyzed turned his life around to where he\u2019s an excellent role model for young people, but Norris says it doesn\u2019t have that effect on everyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome be like, \u2018you don\u2019t mess with guns now, because you got shot and that\u2019s your story, you learned your lesson.\u2019 But I know some who got shot and went back to the same life,\u201d he says. \u201cBut when I started going to school, I realized I could be the same person, be aggressive and go get things on a cleaner, higher level.\u201d Norris earned his bachelors in business from Lehman College in 2006.<\/p>\n

Velasquez also has strong feelings about guns. \u201cI hate guns,\u201d he says bluntly. \u201cWe have to get rid of all of them. Who needs guns?\u201d But like Norris, he thinks that guns, inanimate objects, of themselves cannot do anything. \u201cIt\u2019s the people,\u201d he says. \u201cBut what are they using them for? You might want to shoot somebody and miss your target \u2014 that\u2019s what happened to me. I\u2019m sitting here, and I had nothing to do with guns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Velasquez never wanted anything to do with street life. His mother, Maria, brought her family up from Honduras when he was 15 in pursuit of the American dream. A high school senior at the time of his injury, he says, \u201cMy story is the opposite of Tap\u2019s. I was going to school and was working a little part-time job when I got hit by a stray bullet. I still don\u2019t know who shot me. It turned into the American nightmare. But I\u2019m here, I\u2019m still breathing, I have my brother, Tap, and life is good. You\u2019ve got to keep going.\u201d Velasquez is a stay-at-home dad with his 3-year-old daughter, Cleo, and also has a son who\u2019s getting ready to go to college.<\/p>\n

A fluent Spanish-speaker, Velasquez says he identifies as black more than Latino, \u201cbecause when you see me that\u2019s what you see.\u201d And speaking of race, the duo understands the ground they\u2019re breaking for other black artists with disabilities. \u201cYou don\u2019t see hardly anybody doing what we\u2019re doing,\u201d he says. \u201cYou might see some musicians with disabilities, but it\u2019s not usually a black person. We\u2019re going to change that little by little. Might take a hundred years, but we\u2019re doing the right thing right now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Hip-hop Can Unite Us<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

Many wheelchair users of all races report feeling like they\u2019re the only one, isolated. There\u2019s a dearth of role models for everyone, but it\u2019s especially pronounced for blacks who use wheelchairs. Also, getting young people with disabilities involved and informed is a perennial struggle. Fortunately, both of these populations have an affinity with hip-hop music and culture. This is what made 4 Wheel City\u2019s collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh such a good model for diversity outreach.<\/p>\n

Lester Bennett, a grad student at Pitt, was instrumental in bringing the group to the university. Bennett, a T10 para as a result of a gunshot, also was employed by Three Rivers Center for Independent Living at the time. He and the CIL, together with Pitt and 4 Wheel City, created a diversity program with hip-hop and other arts as the centerpiece.<\/p>\n

Was it successful? Oh, yes, very much so.<\/p>\n

\u201c4 Wheel City was the key,\u201d says Bennett. \u201cThey were the key to the young people who say, \u2018this isn\u2019t for my parents, they\u2019re talking to me.\u2019 And key for African Americans who say, \u2018they look like me and they are into the same things as I am.\u2019 Both demographics we wanted to target with outreach see themselves in 4 Wheel City.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"article_140701_b\"<\/a>Bennett\u2019s being a para from a gunshot helps him identify strongly with the group. On April 22, 1994, he was approached by muggers while out on the town. \u201cBefore the robbery attempt, they sparked up conversation with us,\u201d he recalls. \u201cWhat are you doing with these white girls? That was their first statement. When the guy pulled the gun out, at first I couldn\u2019t do anything because I was so angry that they brought race into it. My stepmother was white and I was raised to treat people equally,\u201d says Bennett, who is black. \u201cThen they pulled that gun out on me and I reached for the gun. I wanted to smack it out of his hand, and he pulled the trigger, then two more times. But he didn\u2019t aim at my head, so he didn\u2019t intend on killing me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Being a black man disabled by a gunshot carries a stigma with it, which Bennett understands professionally as well as from a personal perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a young guy who just got shot by some police officers here in Pittsburgh. I want to advocate for him, but I don\u2019t know what he was doing to put himself in that situation,\u201d says Bennett. \u201cSo, yes, there is a stigma. I know from how people deal with me and how I look at him. It doesn\u2019t make it right, but we\u2019re human beings and all come with our own biases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennett feels events like the one that brought 4 Wheel City to Pittsburgh can foster unity among people with disabilities. \u201cHip-hop has been around all our lives, so it\u2019s not even a black thing anymore. It\u2019s an urban thing that\u2019s even reached the suburbs, so it\u2019s a thing that can unite us,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd what 4 Wheel does with disability is they show we all have a lot of things in common that we can discuss in an open forum where we\u2019re not throwing stones at one another. We have differences, but we must acknowledge our similarities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hip-hop absolutely has the power to cut across demographics and reach younger people, says Pitt\u2019s health sciences diversity director Mario Brown, agreeing with Bennett. \u201cOne of the planners of the event that brought 4 Wheel City to town just recently talked about a student wheelchair user who goes to a mainstreamed school,\u201d he says. \u201cHe brought some of his classmates to the concert and they really loved it, and you could see how proud he was that he turned them onto them. He just felt so good about himself. It\u2019s not that anyone had been treating him bad, but no one had been paying him any attention at all, so he became the cool guy for a few minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

As expected, the event helped disability organizations reach underrepresented populations of people with disabilities. In fact, it spurred a flurry of grant proposals focusing on hip-hop as a way to reach deep into various populations of people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

But another happy outcome is that it has also spurred Pitt to start appointing people with disabilities to committees that don\u2019t necessarily have a disability focus. \u201cI coach a community research advisory board to look at racial and ethnic health disparities, and as a result of the event that brought 4 Wheel City in, I realized we didn\u2019t have anyone representing the disability movement,\u201d says Brown. \u201cSo I asked Lester and another wheelchair user to sit on that board.\u201d<\/p>\n

And also, bringing in a hip-hop group from New York City spurred the university to think of other unique ways to enhance outreach to people with disabilities. \u201cWhen the Pittsburgh Jewish Film Forum sponsored Reel Abilities, our office was front and center to review films and promote the disability film festival that took place at various venues around the city,\u201d says Brown. \u201cWe were able to participate in that as a result of the 4 Wheel City event. There\u2019s always more work to be done, and the thing is how do you measure the effect that you have, which usually takes money and human capital. Has what you\u2019ve done made any impact? But people who weren\u2019t talking about disability are talking about it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It Started With a Song<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

James Cesario, senior outreach program coordinator of rehab medicine for New York City\u2019s Mount Sinai Hospital, helped give 4 Wheel City their start. Norris would come to a weekly transition group offered by Mount Sinai\u2019s rehab to meet with those who were still in rehab, to provide peer support. \u201cOne time he said he writes songs and raps. So everybody prompted him to demonstrate. He pulled one out and it blew everyone away. It was about his mom, what she meant to him,\u201d says Cesario. \u201cI said, \u2018you have a real talent, we have to get you involved with us!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Invited to write a rehab-themed song, Norris and Velasquez put their heads together and came up with \u201cPressure,\u201d about the importance of pressure release to prevent decubiti. Cesario had it made into a CD that included skin care tips on the back of the jacket and started passing it around. Cesario says he also encouraged the two men to keep getting out into the community, to spread their message \u2014 especially about educating kids about violence and staying in school. \u201cThey hooked up with some people and started getting bookings with high schools, telling the kids, \u2018so you think you\u2019re cool, well you\u2019re not cool,\u2019 and they tell their story. It has reached out and touched a lot of kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a rehab professional, Cesario, who was injured at the T4 level 40 years ago, knows it\u2019s important for people who are newly injured to be able to connect with peers. \u201cI\u2019m older, I\u2019m white, I\u2019ll give them the right stuff, but Namel can reach a whole different group of people than I can. There are so many people who\u2019ve been shot or stabbed, who come from dysfunctional families. Namel is more powerful than me because he\u2019s been there, and they\u2019re going to listen to him and like him,\u201d he says. \u201cLook what he\u2019s doing, opening up an area of music. They can identify.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cesario has provided the group with a venue to perform and also was able to get the New York City chapter of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association to present them with a sound system. \u201cFrom time to time I\u2019ll call them and ask if they can come in and perform, and they\u2019ve gotten better over the years. Also, if I have a guy in rehab that I think they\u2019ll mesh with, I\u2019ll call them, and they\u2019ll come bedside.\u201d<\/p>\n

From performing at Mount Sinai and schools in New York City, 4 Wheel City expanded its reach and began marketing its program to universities that have an interest in disability issues such as Pitt. Most recently, James Madison University hosted the group as part of its fifth annual Disability Awareness Week. And the group even performed in London at the beginning of the 2012 Paralympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat surprises me and makes me proud is that we\u2019re reaching all types of people. We never thought we\u2019d be performing at disability studies conferences, for example \u2014 we didn\u2019t even know those things existed. We were just trying to give a voice to our community,\u201d says Norris. \u201cWe just telling our story and knowing people can relate to it. Now that we see it is actually real, it is something we are very proud of. It will take a little while for the hip-hop community to catch on, but we feel we are giving a very positive message for hip-hop as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 1, 2014 Published On\u00a0Newmobility.com In the heart of rural Pennsylvania, in a crowded conference ballroom filled with people of all ages and disability types, a hip-hop group from New York City brought the house down. The group, 4 Wheel City, performed gut-wrenching songs about how they became injured \u2014 gun violence \u2014 and also…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":114,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/4wheelcity.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}