Friends and family of an Orillia teenager who died in a crash this summer are working on a legacy project.
Nelson Bell, an aspiring rapper, was 16 when the car he was in crashed into a hydro pole July 26 on James Street. The tragedy happened at a time when Bell was starting to find his voice, and when others were starting to take notice of it.
Now a project is underway that would see his memory kept alive in the community.
If all goes well, the Valis Recording Studio (Valis was Bell’s stage name) will open in the Orillia Youth Centre. It would be free for local teens to use.
“We’re honoured,” Bell’s father, Darryl, told OrilliaMatters about the initiative.
“This is an important thing and it’s a very fitting legacy,” added Bell’s mother, Carla. “Nelson would be extremely proud and very honoured. He would be happy for the kids to be able to have that opportunity.”
She knows how important it was for her son to be given the opportunity to pursue his passion and for people to take notice of his talents. That includes his parents, who sometimes were concerned their son was lonely, spending a lot of his time in his room. But he wasn’t whiling away the hours on mindless pursuits. He was connecting with others in the hip-hop community and learning all he could about craft.
Recognizing how serious Bell was taking his music, his parents created a recording space for him at their Orillia home.
“A lot of kids don’t have that,” Carla said. “Parents don’t always have the money or the contacts.”
Just before Christmas in 2017, Bell surprised his parents by announcing he was going to perform for the first time during an open mic at the youth centre.
“We didn’t realize how focused he was on the music,” Darryl said, adding he and Carla were “blown away” when they watched a recording of his performance at the open mic.
“He was very talented and very, very smart,” Carla added. “Nelson told me that he wanted to help kids through his music.”
The teen, who had Asperger’s syndrome, did just that, even if he didn’t know it.
“Before the accident, we didn’t know Nelson had so many friends and was involved in so much,” Darryl said.
That became evident when many of those friends and acquaintances attended his wake.
“I didn’t realize how many people in the community he’s affected,” Carla said. “It really blew my mind.”
Those friends are now leading the effort to establish the Valis Sound Studio. Also involved is youth centre director Kevin Gangloff. He remembers the night Bell grabbed the mic and showed the room what he could do.
“When he got on stage, he was a different person,” Gangloff recalled. “It was amazing to see the confidence in him. He owned it that night.”
Gangloff has had conversations with others in the local hip-hop community who have begun to establish themselves as artists. They told him they could have benefited from a studio like the one being envisioned.
“It’s been really neat to hear their thought process on what that would’ve meant for them,” he said, adding, “The hip-hop community is really under-represented in Orillia.”
Champagne Thomson has created a GoFundMe page with a fundraising goal of $50,000.
“As a collective of like-minded peers, supporters and family members, we are endeavouring to carry on the Valis Sound vision by establishing a memorial music studio in collaboration with the Orillia Youth Centre, where Nelson was an active member,” reads a statement on the page. “With your help we will be able to afford youth in Orillia and the surrounding area the opportunity to hone in on their potential through the art of music; providing the space, professional equipment and mentorship that are quintessential to success.”
Friends are also organizing a benefit concert, which they hope will take place this fall. Updates will be posted to the Valis705Forever Facebook page.
