Born with fatal Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Eric Roybal, 18, long ago established a reputation as pragmatic, but even his caregivers were taken aback when he decided to stage a benefit concert to raise money for his own funeral.
“I could go in a week, or a month – or I might not go for a whole year or so,” he said.
In January, his doctor gave him an “end of life” diagnosis, warning that his severe cardiomyopathy had progressed and there were no more medical options. His heart, after all, is a muscle.
Eric Roybal knew the doctor’s words were inevitable. In the universe of males born with Duchenne-type muscular dystrophy, life beyond the teens is not guaranteed. Eric’s brother, Andrew, born with the same disease, is 20 – an advanced age for those with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
Once Eric shouldered the weight of his diagnosis, his thoughts went to his aunt, Iris VanVelkinburgh. She has cared for the Roybal brothers after their mother – her stepsister – yielded custody when Eric was 11.
Another family member, Iris VanVelkinburgh’s sister Jeannie, became a Denver heroine after her attempt to stop two white supremacists from the 1997 murder of African immigrant Omar Dia. Shot and paralyzed in that incident, she died in 2002.
“I just want to make sure my aunt is not gonna be in the hole,” Eric Roybal said, explaining why he and his brother are selling tickets to their hip-hop concert at 7 p.m. Sunday at Swallow Hill Music Association.
“Oh, he hasn’t told me in person, but I know what the concert is for,” VanVelkinburgh said.
“He is so sweet. I’d like to get up and say something on Sunday, but I don’t think I’d be able to. Too emotional.”
VanVelkinburgh is a generation or two past embracing hip-hop or rap but thinks her nephews have talent. Like nearly everyone who knows the Roybal brothers, VanVelkinburgh is stunned by the boys’ ambition, their directness about their looming deaths and their embrace of the time they have left. The brothers’ song “Life or Death” tackles the subject head-on:
“I seen it through the mind/I seen it through the time/Back in the day/I victimize/Like every day/I wonder why I went through the pain/God tell me why/It’s life/It’s life or death/I don’t know what’s for me.”
Uncertainty is the constant the brothers have always known. Eric Roybal never met his father. From his mother, he learned that both relationships and possessions are ephemeral: She pawned the TV that the Make-A-Wish Foundation gave Eric when he was a child. Part of rap’s appeal is its fleeting nature, he said.
“I decided to rap partly because I wanted the fame, and also I wanted to show people that handicapped people would do the same things a regular kid can do,” he said.
Eric Rude, the brothers’ nurse, calls the Roybals “The Rap Gods.” Rude works with them four to six days a week.
The contrast between the Roybal brothers and Rude is dramatic. The brothers are slight, their crooked bodies curled into motorized wheelchairs, their stiff feet shod in creaseless white shoes. Rude is robust and tall, with a graying braided ponytail and a penchant for commuting via motorcycle and for wearing T-shirts advertising death-metal band Opeth.
“When I met the boys, I was amazed – they’re more active than either me or my girlfriend,” Rude said. “Their energy level and their passion for life is amazing.”
Andrew Roybal wears an earpiece connecting him to the cellphone permanently in his lap, and spends at least as much time talking on his cellphone as he does to people in person. Both brothers drive their wheelchairs full-tilt, steering nimbly with their thumbs and two fingers, among the few body parts they can control.
Together, they have written more than 30 rap songs. Along with the group they organized, they recorded one CD, “Dub Edition,” and are working on a second, “Drive 4 Dub.” Everyone has stage names. Eric Roybal’s is E Ice. Andrew Roybal’s is Duball.
The brothers performed for an audience of 1,500 last September in Washington, D.C., at a nonviolent civil disobedience protest staged by ADAPT, a disabled activist group that lobbies for independent care.
Though they’re older than most of their classmates, the brothers attend Abraham Lincoln High School as full-time students. Pitching his hip-hop tickets to other students, Eric Roybal describes Sunday’s performance as a fundraiser without spelling out what the money will eventually pay for.
“I just say it’s for a good cause,” he said.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
Hip-hop benefit concert
7 p.m. Sunday
Swallow Hill Music Association, 71 E. Yale Ave., Denver
Tickets: Suggested donation $20
For more information and to buy tickets, call Andrew Roybal, 303-642-5381.
