Russell Simmons joined leaders of a grass-roots movement in Brooklyn and Queens Saturday to kick off a “peacekeeping” campaign in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.

The Peace Keepers Movement, which started in Houston, tries to stop violence and crime by encouraging a strong presence of men from the community in unstable neighborhoods.

“For me, this is significant because I grew up here,” Simmons said at a rally in Queens Village.

“Not too far from here, I sold drugs,” he said. “I’ve had to change, and I’ve had leaders show me the way.”

Peace Keepers founder Dennis Muhammad says crime in the community can’t be solved with “an influx of police and more prisons.”

“We believe that men must be the role models for young men who kill each other senselessly,” he said at a separate rally in Brownsville.

Shawn Livingston, 23, who lives in Brownsville, agreed.

“To me, it’s a positive thing,” he said.

The number of murders was up about 23% citywide during the first 11 weeks of the year compared to the same period in 2009.

Murders spiked about 15% in Brooklyn and about 29% in Queens.