(Photo by Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images)
“Six minutes…Six minutes…Six minutes Doug E. Fresh you’re on…”
Those words can be heard on dance floors and concerts all over the country. And of course they’re from the legendary Doug E. Fresh & Slick Rick’s song, “The Show.”
As you can imagine, being the human beatbox and one of the world’s greatest entertainer takes a lot of energy, including lung power, stamina, etc. The Harlem MC and beat box creator, and one half of the hip-hop legendary duo with Ricky D (Slick Rick) performs at shows all over the world and even had this generation of youth create a song about him, “Teach Me How To Dougie.” So when hip-hop legend Doug E. Fresh, now 54, had an opportunity to impact the health of the nation, he jumped at the chance.
Doug E. Fresh partnered with Dr. Olajide Williams, a neurologist from New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center to join in the fight against childhood obesity, he merged two very important components of his life: hip-hop and health. The partnership produced Hip Hop Public Health. Hip Hop Public Health (HHPH) is an organization committed to innovative public health solutions. Our mission is to end health illiteracy through music and foster positive health behavior changes.
(Photo Credit: This Day In Hip Hop)
The cornerstone of HHPH programming is the use of hip hop music, short animated features, and health video games as part of a multimedia curriculum designed to motivate healthy behaviors among children and their families. As the program’s Vice President of Entertainment, Doug E. stated that he “felt like it was necessary to take what people love, which is hip-hop, and use it as tool to get kids motivated.”
Recently, Fresh’s HHPH set out to get everybody healthy during the pandemic. From helping to feed the needy to being generous, Doug E. Fresh is for helping the community. They’ve also created the video “20 Seconds or More,” featuring more than 40 noted individuals from the entertainment, sports, medical, civic and business sectors, including Ashanti, Jamie Foxx, Jordin Sparks, Chuck D, and Cedric the Entertainer. The video demonstrates good hand washing techniques and explains why this and other safety protocols – like social distancing – are some of our best tools to help stop the spread of this coronavirus.
“Personal safety measures are important against the highly contagious coronavirus,” says Dr. Williams, who is also a co-founder of HHPH, with Doug E. Fresh. “20 Seconds or More is designed to motivate young people and communities of color to engage in regular hand washing and social distancing, while also appealing to the general public.”
Doug E. understands that children play a large role in the health of the family. “I told my father to stop smoking around the age of two or three years old and he stopped smoking,” said Doug. “So the relationship between…
… the kid and the parent is very powerful and if you give the kid the right information, it can be very useful to the family. That was the whole premise of this concept,” said Doug E.
Doug E doesn’t just talk the talk, he showed that he walks the walk by offering healthier selections in the menu for his restaurant., Doug E. Fresh’s Chicken & Waffles. While the menu offers both soul food and Caribbean food, he now offers wraps and salads, and most importantly: everything is fresh, just like it’s famous owner.
He says “Everything is a process…some of our eating habits consist of things we can’t change but if we modify it a little and put some exercise in there, we can really make a difference.”
“Health has always been an important thing to me. I exercise and try to take care of myself, and drink a lot of water! And I push that to my kids so that they can carry on that same energy.”
When asked what was the best piece of health advice he received, he immediately said, “Stay active because when you give up on your health, you give up on yourself.”
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