YONKERS, N.Y. (PIX11) – The Ruff Ryders are known as the record label that produced famous rappers like DMX and Eve.
Still, the entertainment company has been providing critical resources to in-need communities for years and is now bringing it back to where it all started.
“It’s very important for us to make sure that any resources we have become the kids’ resources,” Joaquin ‘Waah’ Dean, CEO of Ruff Ryders, said.
The Ruff Ryders Foundation has been a strong source of support in urban communities across the country for more than 20 years, and they’re now relaunching their mission through a new initiative called Ruff Ryders to the Rescue. It will be based on the original studio on South Broadway in Yonkers.
“They want us to go to multiple cities, but we said we can’t go to no other city than this city first because this is where we started, and this is where we begin,” Dean said.
Students can learn more from a community watch program to music programs in the same studio where DMX built his career.
“They could sell their own music, be entrepreneurs, things like that, [and learn] how to market themselves,” said Williams Epps, a mentor who teaches pre-production.
Lyric Gilcrest, 8, is one of his students.
“I’m excited because since my brother made his first rap video, I wanted to make my own music,” Gilcrest said.
The initiative is supported by local politicians, including Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano, a lifelong Yonkers resident who grew up near DMX.
“I was born and raised on Van Cortlandt Park Avenue, and he was raised on School Street, and we’re kind of like a block away from each other,” Spano said.
The programs go beyond music, including coding, bike safety, television and film, and more.
The Ruff Ryders plans to expand these programs to other cities nationwide.
