NEW YORK - “It’s for the kids,” said Tourie Escobar of the violin duo Nuttin But Strinz. Tourie and his brother Damien played their violins last week at PS 62 in Richmond Hills, Queens to a crowd of awestruck students.

“It’s to show the kids you can do something instead of rapping,” said Tourie. “When we go there the kids really look up to us. They want to do well in school and pick up a violin. They say, ‘if they could do it, we could do it.’”

Tourie, 19, and Damien, 17, who grew up in Jamaica, Queens, studied the violin at the Juilliard School of Music and Bloomingdale School of Music. They became locally known for playing their self-composed music on the A train.

Their manager James Washington recalls that a year and a half ago when they walked into his office for an informal meeting, he was shocked when everyone in his office already knew who they were. For five years the brothers played on the A train everyday after school to make money. The group still makes appearances on the A train once in a while. “It’s all love in the subway,” said Damien.

Since their subway days ended, the group has played at numerous local schools, done a tour with Radio Disney and taken third place at the 70th annual amateur night at the Apollo Theater earlier this month. They give part of their profits to the charities Lifebeat, which is the music industry fighting AIDS, and VH1’s Save the Music program, which supports music programs in public schools. Save the Music is the same program that made it possible for Damien and Tourie to get into playing violins in the first, said Washington.

Washington describes Nuttin But Stringz music as “a unique blend of classical, hip-hop, rock and reggae.” Damien lists their influences as Bach, Vivaldi, Eminem, Dr. Dre and Jay-Z.

“People describe our music as epic,” said Damien.

The group has started their own record label and is putting out their first album in the summer. Damien says the album blends a lot of different music styles and instruments but the violins always stay at the forefront of the music.