4 Wheel City

Okay, I am - to put it euphemistically - not fond of rap music, not at all. But you do not have to like that kind of music to like these musicians. They are different, i.e., their message is different, no, special.

- About
"4 Wheel City is an entertainment organization started by Namel “Tapwaterz”Norris and Ricardo “Rickfire” Velasquez two talented hip-hop artists and motivational speakers in wheelchairs due to gun violence. Our mission is to use hip-hop music and culture to create more opportunities for the disabled and inspire people not to give up in life. In addition, show the world that people with disabilities can still have talents, dreams, and deserve to be treated equal. 4 Wheel City performs original music as well as motivational speak at hospitals, schools, rehabilitation centers, fundraisers, and events, all over the world."

- History
"Ricardo Velasquez was walking home after a party when he noticed a commotion ahead of him, with people running in all directions. Determined to mind his own business, the high school senior kept heading toward his building in the Bronx housing project. Suddenly he heard someone shout, “He’s got a gun!”

“The next thing I know I’m on the ground bleeding,” Velasquez, 32, recalls of that night 13 years ago. “I was screaming, and it was crazy. It happened just that quick.”

Fast-forward three years.

A resident of the same New York neighborhood, 17-year-old Namel Norris was at his sister’s birthday party when his cousin started playing with a gun. The weapon accidentally fired, striking Norris in the neck and paralyzing him from the chest down."

- New Mission
"The two young men had never met, yet they shared much in common. Both sustained spinal cord injuries and were in wheelchairs. Both felt shunned by the people they used to hang out with. The most difficult part, says Velasquez, was “seeing how people pulled away from me-friends, family members. It’s not fair.”

Before the accident, Norris, now 27, had been an avid basketball player and member of a rap group trying to make it in the music industry. “It wasn’t the same,” he says. “They kind of moved on without me.”"(MORE)

4 Wheel City on YouTube:
::: Welcome To Reality: WATCH/LISTEN
::: The Movement: WATCH/LISTEN

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Photograph via prweb