New Not-for-Profit Organization To Raise Money for HIV/AIDS Research Through Music

A new not-for-profit organization called "Musicaids ... Life Thru Music" will hold a benefit concert Monday to launch the group and its fundraising drive for HIV/AIDS research and education, the Los Angeles Times reports. Proceeds from the benefit, titled "Songs for a New Revolution," will go to the University of California-Los Angeles AIDS Institute to help fund research into vaccines and microbicides, which are gels or foams that could block HIV transmission. Daryl Roach, son of legendary jazz drummer and civil rights activist Max Roach, founded Musicaids after "years of listening" to his friend Peter Anton, a gastroenterologist and director of the UCLA Center for HIV and Digestive Diseases, talk about the disease, the Times reports. According to the Times, Roach said he was "shocked" by the HIV prevalence rate among African Americans. "I was alarmed at what he was telling me. I mean, there are studies that show that the rate of infection for young black men in South Central Los Angeles is 30%. The only place with a higher rate is in Botswana," Roach said. He added that he thought of using music to help because it "got us through family struggles, which got us through life" (Lelyveld, Los Angeles Times, 10/17).