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missing limbs

How this man with one arm is using tech-based music to bring communities together.

There are so many ways and reasons to make music.

True

Emman "Small Eyez" Twe loves music, but an obstacle has gotten in the way of him playing traditional instruments — he only has one arm.

Twe was born prematurely and never fully developed a left arm. It made a lot of things more difficult for him to accomplish, but that didn't mean his mother stopped pushing him to succeed.

"My mom always told me that you have to work 20 times harder than everybody else," Twe recalls.

[rebelmouse-image 19469826 dam="1" original_size="700x489" caption="Emman Twe. Image via Jarrett Heatherly/Digital Good Times." expand=1]Emman Twe. Image via Jarrett Heatherly/Digital Good Times.

He often turned to the music world to escape his frustrations and connect with his inner spirit, but he felt he couldn't contribute as much as he'd like to because of his disability.

That all changed when he discovered how technology made music totally accessible to him.

Twe playing a keyboard. Photo via State Farm.

Thanks to software advancements, Twe found he could do almost anything he wanted to in the music world. At the age of 14, he put his writing and freestyling skills to work and made his first eight-track CD demo. At age 22, he founded the label Mind Musik Records and was performing with artists like Talib Kweli and Dead Prez.

"When I was making music, that’s when I became me," Twe says.

Today, he's taking all his music tech know-how and sharing it with other underserved people via his podcast, "Digital Good Times."

He started the show with friends Jack Preston and Tristan Khavari, who also believe in the importance of bringing the power of music technology to disadvantaged communities.

Preston on the podcast. Photo via State Farm.

"We know the sacrifices that others made for us to have the opportunities that we have, so it only seems fair that we extend those resources to those who may not have that same opportunity," Preston explains.

But it's not just about empowering others through technology and music on-air. Digital Good Times brings communities together IRL too.

They host regular music-centric events that they hope are bridging the gap between communities while inspiring people using cutting-edge technology.

Fans at a Digital Good Times event. Photo via State Farm.

These events usually highlight major players in the music and tech industries that have something new and exciting to share.

"[They're] real-life examples of what it means to be the real deal," Twe says.

Through tech, community, and collaboration, Twe is helping to show struggling creatives there is a world of opportunity waiting for them.

Of course his dad, who was a professor by day and a staple of community support at night, is brimming with pride.

Twe's dad. Photo via State Farm.

"If I can live up to half of [what he's done], then I’ll feel complete," Twe says.

Check out Twe's whole story here:

He was born premature with one arm, but he didn't let that stop him from making incredible music ... and helping others. #GoodNeighborDay
Posted by Upworthy on Thursday, September 28, 2017

Heroes

This retired NFL player put up an amazing gym that trains people with disabilities.

True

Retired U.S. Marine Brian Aft was in a dark place after losing both his legs to an IED in Afghanistan.

After going through countless surgeries, Aft turned to heroin when he realized the pain wasn’t going away. In time, he became severely addicted.

One day, as he was heading through a parking lot, a dude the size of an NFL linebacker started running toward him. "You’re gonna get robbed," Brian remembered thinking to himself.

Turns out the dude was an NFL linebacker — David Vobora. He had noticed Aft's injury — and apparent addiction — and all he wanted to do was ask what happened.

Little did Aft know that the question would change the course of his life forever.

Vobora always understood the importance of fighting back.

Picked dead last in the 2008 NFL draft, Vobora has the distinction of being that year’s Mr. Irrelevant. But he clawed tooth and nail and eventually became the first rookie Mr. Irrelevant to start a game in over a decade.

Then in 2011, a devastating shoulder injury derailed his NFL career. Vobora played through the pain until the end of the season. But he developed a serious pain-pill addiction along the way and decided to check himself into rehab.

All images and GIFs via Starbucks.

After going through an intense detox, Vobora started training again. But his drive to play professional football diminished. That’s when he decided to retire. It scared him; football was all he'd ever known.

With the odds stacked against him once again, Mr. Irrelevant found a way to make it work. He moved to Dallas with his family and decided to help other elite athletes at his very own training facility — the Performance Vault.

Vobora’s path took a new turn the day he met retired Army Staff Sgt. Travis Mills.

Mills is one of five living veteran quadruple amputees from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He, like Aft, was injured by an IED while on patrol.

From the moment Vobora saw him, he was drawn to him. "When was the last time you worked out?" Vobora remembers asking.

"I’m sorry. I don’t want to make you feel like an idiot, but I don’t have arms and legs," replied Mills.

That didn’t matter to Vobora. He didn’t see Mills as an Army vet who'd lost his limbs in battle. He simply saw him as a person who had a body. And as Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman once said, "If you have a body, you are an athlete."

Vobora and Mills got to work. And then they worked some more.

It didn’t matter that Vobora had zero experience training someone with Mills’ condition. All Vobora wanted to do was help Mills see what he was capable of.

In time, Mills began to thrive.

That’s when Vobora realized that no gym he knew of was providing the kind of work that they were doing. What about the other people — whether vet or civilian — who had their own physical disabilities?

"They’ve sort of been sidelined," Vobora says. "They fall into the rehabilitation process, but eventually insurance ran out, cash ran out, and where do they go, right? Where do they go to be apart of a collective group that has this community and this ability to push each other?"

Inspired to make a bigger difference, Vobora started the Adaptive Training Foundation.

It’s a nonprofit designed to empower people with disabilities and restore their confidence through athletic movement. By customizing their plan to what each person can do, they’re able to establish a solid training foundation that has the potential to redefine their physical limits.

This is how men and women like Aft were able to change their lives for the better.

The morning after meeting/getting scared by Vobora, Aft came into the gym and started working out.

He came every day for the next three months.

And he trained alongside other incredible athletes.

All of them were pushing themselves to the absolute limit.

No doubt they did things they never would have done at a normal therapy session.

More than just muscle, the foundation is building a stronger sense of purpose into each and every person it trains.

"They make you stronger," explained Aft. "They instill some insane confidence and self-worth back into you. Not just that, they’re giving you something to do, a place to be, a little sense of community with everybody."

At the end of the day, what sets Vobora apart as a trainer and mentor is his ability to make everyone feel equal, regardless of disability.

Because of the program, these athletes are able to shatter barriers they thought were set in stone. But you know what? They powered right through, lifted that dang stone, and hurled it as far away as humanly possible.