This week, we’re sharing a story that will stay with you long after the episode ends. Our guest, B-Cide, has experienced a transformation that shakes you to your core. A rapper, producer, and author from upstate New York, he’s faced down the unthinkable — a sudden multiple sclerosis diagnosis that turned his world upside down.
📅 This episode drops Thursday, October 23, 2025, at 3 AM ET — “B-Cide: Turning MS and Mental Health Struggles into Music Therapy.”
From touring stages across the country to relearning how to navigate life in a wheelchair, B-Cide opens up about grief, identity, and the fight to find purpose when your body stops playing by the rules. His story isn’t just about surviving an illness — it’s about rewriting what resilience looks like.
He’ll take us through the darkest chapters — the diagnosis, the depression, the heartbreak — and how, somehow, he found rhythm again. What began as therapy through lyrics became a movement: a message to anyone who’s ever been told their life was over that, actually, it’s just a new verse waiting to be written.
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🔥 Special Shout-Out: Women Supporting Women
🌟 Meet Angie Hawkins
Angie Hawkins is an Inner Glow Coach who helps high-achieving women stop dimming their light to be loved—and learn to love themselves so deeply the world can’t help but reflect it back.
She works with women who’ve done therapy, read the books, tried the spiritual path, but still feel like something’s missing. Through deep inner work and identity transformation, she helps them break the cycle of not feeling “enough,” so they can experience real love, confidence, and peace without changing who they are.
She’s also the author of Running in Slippers, a raw and vulnerable memoir about finding resilience after emotional rock bottom.
✨ Ready to find your glow? Book a free Find Your Glow session or join her next Unshakable You masterclass to start shining from the inside out. 🔗 https://www.runninginslippers.com/
💬 Mental Health Quote of the Week
“As long as it didn’t take away my voice, I was gonna keep going with this. I never want to die asking, what if?” — B-Cide
That one line captures everything about B-Cide — the fire, the defiance, the will to keep creating when the world goes dark.
Before the diagnosis, he was living every artist’s grind dream — touring the country, spitting bars in underground clubs, chasing the rush of the stage lights. Then, out of nowhere, a blood clot, a hospital bed, and three haunting words from a neurologist changed everything: “You have MS.”
He was 29. He thought he’d bounce back. But his body had other plans. His legs stopped cooperating, his independence slipped away, and depression came crashing in like a second illness. The woman he loved couldn’t handle it. The future he’d worked for disappeared overnight.
And yet… he refused to quit.
Instead of burying his grief, B-Cide wrote it down. Every verse became a confession. Every track became therapy. When doctors couldn’t fix him, the music did.
He built 55 Strong, a streetwear brand and record label born from his mantra: You can’t control the hit — but you can control the remix. What started as survival became a movement — a community for creatives, fighters, and anyone who’s ever been told their story was over when it was really just starting a new beat.
Through this conversation, we saw what true resilience looks like. It’s not blind positivity or toxic strength — it’s a man in a wheelchair, still producing, still writing, still laughing, still showing up. It’s what happens when you choose to make meaning from pain instead of letting pain make meaning of you.
🧩 From the Conversation
💬 The heartbeat of this episode B-Cide’s story reminds us that healing isn’t about pretending you’re fine — it’s about turning your pain into purpose. From losing mobility and battling depression to rebuilding his life through music, he shows us that resilience isn’t loud or shiny. It’s quiet. It’s creative. It’s showing up for yourself when the world stops showing up for you.
🫂 A quote that stuck with us
“As long as it didn’t take away my voice, I was gonna keep going with this. I never want to die asking, what if?” — B-Cide
🎙️ Real Talk from Us “When B-Cide said he never wants to die asking what if, that hit hard. He turned a diagnosis that could’ve broken him into a movement that builds others up. That’s what real strength looks like.” – G-Rex
“Listening to B-Cide reminded me that survival isn’t passive — it’s art. He’s proof that creativity is therapy when the world stops making sense.” – Dirty Skittles
📓 Reflection Prompts to Sit With • What part of your story could become your next verse, lyric, or art form? • Where have you been silencing your own voice out of fear? • What would it look like to create from your pain instead of hiding it?
🌱 Gentle Reminder You don’t have to be cured to be creative. Healing can happen between the beats — one verse, one breath, one truth at a time.
👊 Meet Our Guest — B-Cide (Robert Cardillo II)
Before the world knew him as B-Cide, he was just Bob from upstate New York — a kid raised on hip-hop, heavy metal, and hustle. He came from a working-class family, learned resilience early, and found his outlet behind a mic.
Over 25 years later, he’s a rapper, producer, author, and entrepreneur whose story has reached 170+ media outlets including Yahoo Finance, Digital Journal, and Benzinga. His memoir, Myelin My Shoes, tells the unfiltered truth about life with multiple sclerosis, mental illness, and the 25-year underground grind that taught him how to rise again.
Today, through 55 Strong, his clothing line and record label, he’s creating more than music — he’s building legacy. He speaks openly about mental health, masculinity, disability, and the cost of chasing your dreams when your body can’t always keep up.
But his message isn’t about disease or despair. It’s about redefinition. It’s about letting go of what you thought your life was supposed to look like and making something powerful out of what’s left.
Creativity can be medicine when nothing else works.
Chronic illness doesn’t erase identity — it reshapes it.
Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s power set to rhythm.
“Never quit” isn’t a slogan. It’s a survival strategy.
You don’t have to love every part of your story to share it.
💪 Actionable Steps
Create something today — a playlist, poem, or journal entry — just for you.
Reach out to someone going through a tough diagnosis. Just listen.
Revisit something you loved before life got hard.
Let one creative act replace one destructive thought.
Say out loud: I’m allowed to rebuild my life differently.
💬 Listener Engagement
Did this episode hit you in the feels? We want to hear it. Reply to this email or tag us on IG at @grex_and_dirtyskittles with your favorite takeaway. Let’s keep the real talk going.
⭐ Subscribe, Rate & Review
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Your words help others find the show — and remind us why these conversations matter.
❤️ Closing Remarks
Sometimes, the strongest people aren’t the ones standing tall — they’re the ones sitting still, mic in hand, refusing to let silence win.
B-Cide’s story is a reminder that your life doesn’t end with your diagnosis, your heartbreak, or your breakdown. It begins again — in the verse you write, the beat you build, the choice you make to stay.
So wherever you are right now — broken, healing, or somewhere in between — remember this: You are still capable of creating something beautiful from the mess. You are still art in progress.
Keep showing up. Keep creating. Keep talking about the shit that goes on in your head. We’ll see you next week.
With love, G-Rex & Dirty Skittles Changing the way we talk about mental health, one real convo at a time.
G-Rex & Dirty Skittles
It's ok to be not ok, just make sure you're talking to someone
