Independent record label, Funk Volume launched it’s first health and wellness program, Funk Volume Fitness and corresponding website. The site focuses on fitness, nutrition, and mental health, along with aggregated content. Funk Volume also incorporates monthly exercise challenges to increase engagement, targeting those at various workout levels.
Speaking with HipHopDX, Funk Volume CEO, Damien Ritter says that SwizZz, Jarren Benton and Dizzy Wright live fitness conscious lives.
“At the end of the day, Funk Volume’s heart is Hip Hop,” he says. “[The goal is to] take that and branch off into other positive things that we generally support. This isn’t something that we’re coming up with because it’s a hot topic. We live this. This is the way that I live. This is the way that SwizZz lives. Even if you smoke weed, even if you drink a lot that doesn’t mean that’s all you do. You can counter balance that with a healthier lifestyle.
“Jarren [Benton’s] actually vegetarian,” Ritter continues. “He might have a Colt45 in his picture but at the same time he’s conscious of what he’s putting into his body. He works out—not as often as we do. And then the same with Dizzy [Wright]. Dizzy’s smoking weed 24/7, but even in that state of mind, he has that song [“State Of Mind”] where he says, ‘Put down the soda / Picked up the Yoga / My healthy mind is what’s gonna help me over.’ People are conscious of it. I think that’s one thing that they have the image of smoking weed and drinking, but that doesn’t mean that people that do that don’t also workout or that you shouldn’t work out to counteract the more harmful things you’re doing to your body. We want to meet people wherever they are. SwizZz even smokes and drinks and he’s the all-organic, working-out everyday, really watching what he eats [member]. We’re all human. We all have different sides to us. We don’t all have to be one thing. They can part and be healthy at the same time. That’s most people and that’s what most people want to do.”
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Ritter also discussed the label’s Funk Volume In The Community initiative, which he hopes to turn into a nonprofit organization. He also shares Funk Volume’s vision to open a school.
“I want to make that an actual non-profit this year or early next,” he says. “That will be a huge project in and of itself. Right now, it’s fairly easy to manage. Once you try to make that initiative an actual nonprofit, we have to be responsible for executing that and bringing on people that can make it happen. Right now, those are the things that I’m focused on. Later on down the road, I personally have an interest in opening up a school. That’s a long-term goal, whether we call it Funk Volume High School or whatever I don’t know, but that’s absolutely a personal goal of mine. I’d love to do it through Funk Volume or have a heavy Funk Volume influence there.”
For more information on Funk Volume Fitness, visit FunkVolumeFitness.com.
