Pass the mic

The Mic Check Myeloma-We Care For The Culture tour comes to Philadelphia this weekend to share both information and fun.

By Denise Clay-Murray

Three years ago, hip-hop, a form of music that’s either often misunderstood or often hard to understand, celebrated its 50th anniversary.

I was 12 when hip-hop started, which means that I, like it, am old.

And because we’re both old, both of us — hip-hop and I — have to pay attention to our health.

So, when I got an email telling me about the Mic Check Myeloma-We Care For The Culture tour, a partnership between the Health, Hope and Hip-Hop Foundation and the International Myeloma Foundation, and its upcoming visit to Philadelphia’s Sixth Man Center, I was interested.

So, I reached out to Oya Gilbert, the hip-hop artist that founded Health, Hope and Hip-Hop. Philadelphia is the first stop on the tour, which will bring important medical information to those in attendance using a medium that is near and dear to his heart.

Because September is Blood Cancer Awareness Month, and the Black community is disproportionally impacted by it — twice as much as the rest of the population — Gilbert and Dr. Joseph Mikhael, the oncologist that serves as Chief Medical Officer for the IMF, are going to five cities with significant Black populations to spread the word and give people the information they need to advocate for themselves.

Gilbert knows from experience how important it is to have as much information as possible. For two years, he was experiencing fatigue and didn’t know what was causing it. He’d never had a major illness or even a broken bone his entire life, he said.

He went to several specialists to find out what was happening and got insufficient answers.

“It was labeled it as anxiety at first,” Gilbert said. “And then, as they continued to test me for things, they were all coming back negative. But I continued to get more sick. This went on for two years to the point where they started labeling me as a hypochondriac. Said I was looking for drugs, and eventually I was at the point of to the point where I was sick every day, all day. So, I knew I was going to pass away. So, I tried to increase my life insurance policy to get more money for my children. And the thing we don’t like about [insurance companies] not wanting to cover preexisting conditions is actually what saved my life because they checked for everything and discovered the protein and in my blood and urine, and then I went and got a biopsy, and I was diagnosed.”

Power 99 radio personality Roxy Romeo and DJ RL will be emceeing and spinning classic hip-hop and R&B as part of Mic Check Myeloma. There will also be a panel featuring Gilbert, Dr. Mikhael, Nicole Duncan-Smith, chief communications officer for the Health, Hope and Hip-Hop Foundation, Bryon Daily of Blood Cancer United, and Brahim Washington, a Philadelphian who took care of his mother as she battled multiple myeloma.

“What [attendees] can expect is a wonderful experience of community, and real talk in plain language to explain to them the importance of being aware of this particular disease, and also the importance of their health in general,” Gilbert said.

Mic Check Myeloma-We Care For The Culture will be held from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12 at the Sixth Man Center, 4250 Wissahickon Ave. It’s free, but you do have to register, because in addition to all that great entertainment and information, there will also be food. To register, visit: https://healthhopehiphop.org/mic-check-myeloma/.