(AllHipHop News) Superstar producer Noah “40” Shebib has crafted huge hits for Drake, Alicia Keys, DJ Khalid, and A$AP Rocky, and now the Canadian hit maker is lending his celebrity to a worthy cause.
40 will join Meredith Vieira and Richard Cohen in helping the National Multiple Sclerosis Society raise awareness about the disease during MS Awareness Week which runs from March 11-17 this year.
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease where a person’s own immune system attacks their central nervous system, and the nerve cell connections between the body and the brain are damaged. Symptoms of MS vary from numbness in the limbs to paralysis or loss of vision depending on the individual. MS affects over 2 million people around the world, and there is currently no cure for the disease.
The NMSS’s public awareness campaign, “MS Kills Connection > < Connection Kills MS,” will be presented on three mega-electronic billboards in Times Square, New York City. The ads will feature people, like 40, who are living with MS. 40 was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 22.
“It started with sensory issues. I woke up one day and all the temperature in my body was distorted. My sense of hot and cold and what that meant to my brain was very confusing,” said 40 in a 2012 interview with CNN. “I think one of the biggest struggles people with MS face is trying to define it to people and explain how it manifests itself. It’s very difficult, you know.”
The National MS Society hopes their new public awareness campaign and other activities during MS Awareness Week will help educate the public about what people with multiple sclerosis face, how those effected with disease can connect to each other, and eventually assist researchers discover a treatment that will end MS.
For more information about MS Awareness Week visit www.MSconnection.org.
Watch a MS Connection PSA below.