side3’s super-neato posterous land

Travis McCoy from Gym Class Heroes. Awesome song and awesome story behind it. 

It's not everyday that a hip hop song makes you cry, but rarely are they written about AIDS by a 28-year-old suburbanite from Buffalo. This Trifecta was in effect last week as I stood in a Lower East Side bar watching a preview of Travis McCoy's new track "One At A Time."

Travis McCoy, lead singer of alternative hip hop band Gym Class Heroes, embarked on a once-in-a-lifetime trip around the world this summer as Ambassador for the Staying Alive Foundation -- MTV's HIV and AIDS awareness charity that funds youth-led grassroots HIV prevention projects. With 45 percent of infections occurring in young people age 15-24, McCoy had one mission -- he wanted to educate and inspire young men his age to change their behaviors and attitudes that are contributing to the spread of this disease. He wanted to get the whole world talking about HIV and AIDS, and while that is no easy task, that's just what he did.

For 12 days, on 10 flights, over four continents, through three cities -- strapped day and night to a microphone and followed on camera -- McCoy bravely recounted his experiences with HIV and AIDS, introduced us to the courageous individuals he met along the way and before our very eyes became not only an MTV Ambassador, but their Ambassador of Kwan.

McCoy twittered, blogged and wrote day and night about where he was and what he saw. His Twitter account quickly amassed 200,000+ followers, his 14,000+ Facebook fans eagerly awaited each new post, celebrity friends like Russell Simmons tweeted about his "boy Trav" while the likes of Justin Timberlake, Nickelback, Solange Knowles and Jordin Sparks uploaded videos with words of support. All the while MTV's site www.theunbeatentrack.com attracted thousands of voices from around the world suddenly discussing HIV.