GRANDMASTER MELE MEL LAUNCHES A NEW FITNESS SHOW ON PUBLIC ACCESS!

If you want to get healthy through hip hop, the man known as Grand Master Mele Mel is ready to show you how it's done.

The Bronx-bred hip-hop pioneer - real name Melvin Glover - will star in a rap-related fitness show airing this summer on public access TV in the city.

"The Bronx - and America - needs to get fit. We're sofa kings, fat sofa kings," the Grand Master, 49, said.

"The average American used to be a strong, respectable person. Now he's fat and lazy and wondering when he's going to get his next Big Mac. We need a more fit image. It's got to be done, and I'm going to do it."

"Grand Master Fitness with Mele Mel," will air on BronxNet, along with Brooklyn's Brick Arts Media Channel, and Manhattan Neighborhood Network.

BronxNet, which is producing the show, is in negotiations with Queens' public access channel, QPTV, said a station representative.

The show plays to the best and worst about the borough - it's the birthplace of hip hop, but also ranks worst in the nation in just about every health category.

"This is the borough of hip hop and what better way to engage people in fitness than through that medium," said Michael Max Knobbe, the executive director of BronxNet and an avowed fitness fanatic. "It's a perfect balance of culture and health."

Mele Mel, a ripped 5-foot-8 rapper who often appears shirtless, says he doesn't plan to just walk viewers through exercises while hip hop blares in the background. The show will feature some of that standard fitness show fare, he said.

"We're going to mix it up. We're going to go to different gyms, different playgrounds to see what people do to stay fit," he said.

"Every episode isn't going to be me and a bunch of people sweating to music," he said. "I want to make it fun, and show people how to eat right."

The hip-hop artist also promised cameos from his coterie of famed friends.

Years ago, he was one of the "break boys" or free-wheeling dancers who populated the earliest of hip-hop parties.

Then, at small clubs like The Black Door and The Dixie Club, he drew a following and even secured himself the historical footnote of being the first rapper in a long line of such performers to refer to himself as "M.C.," or "Master of Ceremonies."

His rap-related odyssey has continued for the better part of 25 years, taking him all the way to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in which he was inducted in 2007 as part of the group, "Mele Mel and the Furious Five."



BRONX ZOO! IT'S STILL A F**KING JUNGLE! DON'T PUSH ME CAUSE I'M CLOSE TO THE EDGE! STILL FEEL LIKE THAT TO THIS DAY!




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