Punch lines

Typical of Modenine, he isn’t just about making music, he displays why he is considered a great lyricist. …

Adopting metaphors, he drives home his messages with lines that will definitely take a lot of rappers to school. On the opening track, ‘We at it Again’, he distinguishes himself from perceived fake rappers with “…most of y’all are flightless/ the fly ones fly low/…I can make you babies go gugu gaga…” showing and not telling why he considers himself the Head.

His wordplay and punch line continues again on the 2Face assisted ‘We Dey Vex’. He drops lines like “if you love to role play, roll over and play dead/… me and you is prime numbers, we not even…”

One also can’t help but think he takes a jab at Hip on TV who criticized his dress appearance at the 2009 Hip Hop World Awards: “…too Hip for Y’all, y’all can’t rave me/ Fitch about my dress code, I’m so wavy/ atomic number 47, I’m a gee,” on ‘My Life’ which contains spoken words from Afrobeat legend, Fela Kuti.

Love Mode

While he keeps it gangster on most tracks on the album, he still has enough space to play some ‘love Jones’.

On the track ‘Thinking about you’ delivered on a feel good instrumental, Mode plays a Casanova trying to woo. “…My million dollar baby you are my charm/ love the way she flips it to the back/she puts her spell on me,” he goes on the track.

He speaks about day dreaming about a crush from his school days on the track, ‘Love Jones’.

Mode men

Modenine features a couple of artists on Da Vinci Mode though only a few of them are rappers. With 2face and A1 on lead singles ‘We Dey Vex’ and ‘Badman’ respectively, both tracks were killed. Ososensi gives the reggae flavour to the track ‘Tears of Pain’.

On the Mo’Chedda assisted ‘Whut you Want’ the rapper cum singer from the Knighthouse leaves the rhyming to Mode and only sings the bridge. OD and Terry Tha Rapman both provide Mode with stiff competition lyrically on ‘Loke’ and ‘Down’ respectively. Tha Rapman, however, takes the spotlight from Mode on ‘Down’ with rhymes like “this is the freestyle cipher, in the eye of the tiger, the Real McCoy …the rhyme writer, the limelighter only mine is brighter/… been with Hip-Hop for so long think I might wife her”.

Back to the roots

World over, Hip-Hop heads attest that the best rap songs were those made back when Hip-Hop had not been fused with other genres, a thought Mode must have shared while making a couple of tracks on this album. ‘Muzic Lives’ a career reminiscing track, ‘Remember’ and the B.I.G. voice and line sampling self-defining track feeds well on the rap ideas and beats of the 80s.

And the beef…

As promised, the carryover from Paradigm Shift, his previous album, is ‘Death Blow part 2′ standing as the last track. It, however, isn’t a R.I.P Ruggedman track as expected, it is a comic lame freestyle from the one introduced as Joe Skippy.

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true talk… modenine is d best ever in naija… d guy has been doing it since way back… best lyricist, best metaphor user, and d most consistent with true rap style… truth be said

Born in little Troup, Texas, and raised mostly in Plainview after age two, Jernetta Brown moved back to her home state from California - and, specifically, to Brenham in 1996 - where she authored this featured slogan for Standing in the Gap Ministries, an entity which she registered as a Texas business activity back in 2005. …

Except while most time-consuming business ventures have the primary goal of at least a worthwhile profit for its founder and director, Jernetta has instead approached the project she fondly calls SITGAP as essentially “My Outreach Ministry” and often finds herself as the major supporter for its works; now including two inspirational radio shows.

To make what could be a long story manageable in length, Jernetta obviously feels a strong pull - as one project seems to be financially viable - to launch still another undertaking based on “(the several) ministries that God placed on my heart a long time ago.”

It seems that with financial resources based heavily on her long hours of work as a caregiver for elderly and sick local area residents - at times working directly for clients and other times employed through a home health agency - she would initiate, now a full five years ago, SITGAP’s Phase 1 with this stated philosophy at its charter’s heart:

“Standing in the Gap reaches out to all kinds of people, to people of all nations, creeds and color.

“If we can, we’ll reach out with food, clothes, shelter and jobs to help the hungry, the shut-in, the one who is having a hard time, or going through a difficult area in their life

“(SITGAP) is simply your distributor. You may give food, furniture or other useful items.

“We know who is in need and what they need. We are around people and we give to them.

“We love them, and we love you.

“We have a pick-up service if you are not able to transport the items you want to donate to this ministry.

“Your trash is (often) a poor man’s treasure!” (The office phone locally is 836-4480).

Her ‘Morning Ministry’

As this phase of SITGAP’s ministry grew, always advancing - though perhaps frustratingly slow at time for its extremely busy founder - Jernetta, often working long nights as a caregiver to be certain “the work” continued, would take a huge leap of faith with the Fall 2007’s introduction of a 15-minute radio ministry each week.

At 10:45 a.m. every Sunday, in most instances Jernetta would serve essentially as “a radio host” leading into a motivational talk by a variety of effective spiritual speakers she had arranged.

But, of course, there was a single common thread in this weekly KWHI program: It would always be geared to a message involving “spreading the Gospel to all nations” - ideally, inspiring many others to be similarly motivated.

On appropriate occasions as the program’s host, Jernetta would tie in a central theme of her SITGAP Ministries charter noting such examples as - in her own life - she had a friend “who was like a sister to me” and who after suffering a stroke (far away in another state) could no longer function on her own.

Fortunately, Jernetta reports that another good friend lived near this disabled “sister” - and while Jernetta was unable to go to her, and do things she would have loved to have been able to do, this friend who was so fortunately much closer by was generally able “to stand in the gap for me” - thus bringing God’s blessings to all these women.

This soon-to-be three years of what Jernetta calls her “Morning Ministry” has now been joined - with the recent March 7 debut of the New Artists Christian Showcase - by this one-hour (Sunday, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.) weekly program airing on KLTR 94.1 FM radio in Brenham.

While likely her own longtime background as a Christian music vocalist inspired this new venture on Jernetta’s part, she is seeking out a wide variety of young talent to help spread God’s word, inviting those who perform instrumental music, poetry, short sermons/storytelling, testimonies and Christian rap or comedy to contact her with demos.

‘Showcase’ venture

Jernetta opens a recent letter sent out to prospective participants with, “I am so excited about this (Christian Showcase) and just know you’re going to get excited about it, too!”

She then adds: “God placed this ministry upon my heart a long time ago. I grew up in a small (Texas) town. In my third grade year, at the end of each class, my teacher let any of the students get up and express themselves with whatever talent they though they had.

“I would sing - yes, I would sing from that day on. I started singing in choir group, inner city churches and traveled with the preacher and his wife to represent our church.

” Later, after high school, I sang with bands, going to different events to sing. In prisons, at Air Force bases, for different kinds of causes. I knew this was what I wanted to do one day, and now I give thanks to God.

“I am living my dream and reaching my goals. Praise God!”

For nearly a decade after graduation from Plainview High School - in addition to “preparing for life” by going to business school and also training as a nursing assistant along the way - Jernetta would pursue that dream she had since childhood to become a professional vocalist/actor and headed out to Los Angeles to chase this lofty goal.

During one point rather early in Jernetta’s California years, she was teamed with future star Aretha Franklin in a stage presentation titled “Just Imagine.”

At that point, Jernetta was performing under the name of Faye Ross.

For several years, she also taught in a daycare center owned by her sister and one most enjoyable experience in those California years was being a drama instructor for children/teens at King’s Park Culture Center in Long Beach.

Back ‘home’ to Texas

Then there would be a return back near her West Texas roots as Jernetta and her daughter Sharae Bonae Belton, age 9 at the time she became a Texan, settled down for a while in Lubbock, 1991-95.

There, Jernetta operated the “Quick Lunch” cafe for much of this five-year Texas Panhandle area stay.

On January 1, 1996, there was a full-fledged - and, hopefully, permanent - move to Brenham which included bringing her elderly mother here to be closer to several of her children located in the Houston/Gulf Coast area.

Jernetta’s mother would pass away in 2000 at age 88, having enjoyed several years much nearer to her kids.

In that same year, daughter Sharay graduated from Brenham High School and, in the rather recent past, she has become an AMA Home Care employee here. Prior to that, she worked for eight years with the J.C. Penney Co.

Jernetta also especially enjoys cooking - at times in the past, being asked to cater small parties with her favorite “soul food” recipes - but the primary driving forces in this busy/determined woman’s life revolve around her “helping others” in all of the important ways listed in the charter she authored for Standing in the Gap.

Certainly, it is a wonderful time for Jernetta when she has the opportunity to provide a birthday party, or another meaningful celebration, in behalf of a relative “who simply couldn’t be there for a loved one’s special day.”

It is Jernetta Brown’s philosophy, as a woman of faith, to work toward everyone understanding several important things: “God created us all. We need to live in unity. And never let anybody just be thrown away.

Below the activities list are links to related resources

Take our first-ever Student Challenge and create a New York Times found poem! You’ll find everything you need here. …

To Mark the Day - Look at the slide show “Seasons Greetings from Robert Frost,” which features chapbooks of the poet’s work that were released as holiday greetings. Then make illustrated chapbooks, using original or favorite poems to mark an occasion such as a birthday or graduation - or celebrate Poetry Month with a chapbook of poems about poetry.

A Place for Poetry, Poetry for a Place - After watching and listening to “Mary Oliver’s Provincetown: A Poet’s Landscape,” have students look through personal photographs of favorite places, and then write poems inspired by them. (You might also take a look at other poems about places, such as Westchester New Jersey.) Host an event in which students read their poems accompanied by a slide show of images.

Odes to the Unlikely - Love, death, the beauty of nature - these are perennial and rich subjects for poetry, but what about everyday objects such as school buses and cell phones? Have students read Gary Snyder’s “Why I Take Good Care of My Macintosh” Television” by Robert Pinsky, to inspire their own poems about quotidian details and objects that are generally not celebrated in verse.

Supplying the School - After getting permission, bring poetry to unexpected places around your school. Ask them to choose poems they have studied in school or elsewhere (or their own original works) to print and tape to cafeteria tables, bathroom mirrors, hallway walls, or even write in chalk on campus sidewalks. You might show students the Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk Poetry in Motion program in the New York City subway, to get an idea of what kinds of poems work well as public pieces.

Method to the (Divine) Madness - “What time do you sit down to write? Do you write your drafts in a notebook or on your computer?” These are the kinds of questions poets often hear at public readings and interviews, and which Brooklyn’s poet laureate Tina Chang addressed in the video “Birth of a Poem.” Have students research what their favorite poets have said about their own creative process and present it, along with a poem or two by him or her to the class.

Everyone, A Critic - Read a Times review of a poetry collection Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, 1975-2010′, by Edward Hirsch. Then read at least five poems by the same poet, preferably written over a long period of time, then write your own review, or assemble a poetry collection on the topic or theme of your choice, such as love or change.

Soothing Lines in Difficult Times - Ask the question “When do we most need poetry?”. Select poems you find uplifting or comforting. You might draw inspiration, for example, from contemporary “soldier-poets” Home Fires blog posts by award-winning poet and war veteran Brian Turner). Hold an in-class read-aloud or an evening reading called “The Poems That Matter Most.”

Li Young Lee Versus Jay-Z? - Host a debate in which students pit poems found in books against rap Can lyrics be considered poetry? Why or why not? Should both forms be held to the same artistic standards? To extend the activity, have musically-inclined students set poems they have studied in school to music-and read lyrics aloud without musical accompaniment.

Recite, Memory -Have students choose a poem they will learn by heart to recite in class on Friday, April 30th. Find tips to transform this potentially daunting task to a positive and meaningful experience (and one students may look forward to repeating) in our lesson By Heart.

Poetry Contest - Take a page from some of the other Times blogs and hold a poetry contest, either school-, grade- or class-wide, or in a certain academic discipline. For inspiration, check out these past Times blog poetry contests: “There Once Was a Fund Guy Named Bernie” Vocab Is Splendid Because”, from - where else? - Schott’s Vocab.

Finding Poems Everywhere - Contribute to our found poem challenge by following the directions here.

Or, read some of Alan Feuer’s “found poems” made from “Missed Connections” postings on Craigslist. Mr. Feuer has written numerous such “Poetic Connections,” including this one (Note that the Craigslist specifies that “Missed Connections” is for users 18 and older and “may include adult content.” Teachers wanting to use Craigslist for this activity should choose appropriate “Missed Connections” posts for students to work with.)

Related Resources:

From The Times:

Times Topics pages:

Poetry and Poets

From its cover - including album covers from Run-DMC and Jeru Da Damaja, one can easily gather that Wordsmith is above all else, concerned with Rap music. Vintage Experience is a lot of that - rapping about Rap. “The Next Level Experience” is followed by “Hip-Hop 2.0″ which is followed by “Hip-Hop & Beyond.” Sadly, Words brings little new life to these topics of awaiting record contracts and promises of advancing the culture. Although it’s a topic frequently broached by the late Tupac Shakur, Wordsmith’s “An Ode To My Sons” is much more insightful from the softer spoken emcee. Here, the verses are met beautifully with Kimia Collins’ powerful chorus in the most intimate moment of the album. The same is true of “Gods Morning” The spiritual journey is enhanced by synth hits, as Wordsmith shares his meditative morning outlook on life and the world. It’s not something everyone can relate to, but the honesty in the words makes it something many wish to aspire to.

As heard in the keyboard accents on “Gods Morning,” production plays a big role on Vintage Experience . However, unlike Blueprint’s 1988 or Kaze & 9th Wonder’s Spirit of ‘94 , the “vintage” of this album are more in mind than in sound. Interlude soundbeds provided by Professa throughout the album are much more Kid Cudi than they are Kid N’ Play. That’s not a bad thing though, as they are some of the best beats on the project. Capish’s production “Block Banger” does not live up to its name, as the overdone composition appears to have Lil Jon/Shop Boyz elements, while Wordsmith delivers his lyrics in a Pitbull-like fashion of extended cadence and changing tempos. Wordsmith sounds his most unique and most comfortable with longtime Canadian production partner Strada. From their re-worked “As The Art Fades Away” song to “Rock The Crowd,” Strada allows Wordsmith to sound both wise and young, energized but comfortable. Together they find this album’s balance, although sequences take leaps from fast to slow, loud to subdued, making Vintage Experience a bumpy ride.

In last year’s always with Chubb, Wordsmith was able to complement the Select Records hit-maker with a youthful freshness and less dominating microphone presence. On his own, Wordsmith is still a work-in-progress. Perhaps true to its intention, Vintage Experience spends a lot of the album reminiscing about the past, with love, care and wonder. KRS-One Grand Puba and 2Pac all did this throughout their Rap careers. However, Wordsmith has great things to say. He appears to have a wisdom and lived experience that’s lost in simple chorus-driven tracks, or nostalgic odes. Morever, this album appears to be confused with a la cart beats from a handful of producers all fighting for distinction. The dedication is there, but the tutelage is still progressing.

“I don’t think hip hop is dead, it just lost its direction,” said Devin Cole, a third-year political science student from Tampa. …

The art form was believed to have officially begun in 1979 with the release of the Sugar Hill Gang’s Rappers Delight. From that point forward, the genre became the heartbeat of a generation, having a great influence on every facet of mainstream culture in America.

Hip-hop’s deep jazz and disco roots in turn gave birth to the eclectic sampling and subliminal messages that once characterized the genre have since dwindled away, according to Hip-Hop and Politics, a study conducted by the Black Youth and Politics Project.

“Back in the day, music meant something. It had an underlying message. All we have now are artist like Soulja Boy talking about ‘turning his swag on.’ Hip-hop hasn’t died, people just having trouble distinguishing real hip hop from entertainment,” said Cole.

Anthony Mingo, a third-year elementary education student from Trenton, N.J., agrees with Cole.

The same study conducted by the Black Youth and Politics Project revealed that, “While 58 percent of black youth listen to hip-hop, most are dissatisfied with its content. They often find the subject matter too violent, or too degrading to women.”

Paul Porter, co-founder of Industry Ears and a former music programmer for BET and Radio One, agrees that most hip-hop today is negative. However, he said “people don’t realize that they have an option when it comes to what they listen too.”

Industry Ears is a non-profit organization that aims to bring balance to what the media portrays. The organization wants to carry out its mission by stressing to the public has that they have the final say-so over what they hear on.

According to the Industry Ears Web site, “the music industry — record labels, distribution, promotion, retail — and broadcast media –TV and radio, have become a monopoly with a handful of organizations controlling what people see, hear and know; ultimately shaping the perceptions and behaviors of people watching, listening and learning.”

Montray Love, a second-year political science student from Miami, said the genre sends different messages.

“There’s music out there with positive messages, but it’s not mainstream. Hip-hop glorifies ignorance instead of substance. We keep the positive side of hip-hop underground.”

According to Industry Ears’ website, “The $10 billion dollar a year Hip-Hop industry claims to reflect black life and culture; however, 80 percent of it is consumed by whites.”

One may have to go to great lengths to discover the positive in hip-hop music in mainstream culture today. However, the strong presence of the Internet may offset this daunting task.

Web sites such as theskybeneath.com, offers podcasts of hip-hop artists who have stuck to their roots. According to its Web site, “The goal of the podcast is to expose people to a variety of hip-hop music that is currently absent from many major radio stations that predominantly play songs dominated by violence, mysogyny and self-destructive materialism.”

Send me a email addy and I would love to hit you with weekly stats of sales and airplay. The decline continues to be steep.

Paul Porter

IndustryEars@gmail.com

Florida A&M plans to offer Online Degrees in different college majors over the next few years. Additionally, Famuan students escape to the Las Vegas Nightlife after final exams. And, for Famuan bachelors, it is a sure bet that a Las Vegas Bachelor Party is a great way to get rid of those pre-wedding jitters.

Also Known As: Andre Romelle Young, Dr. J

Before the Photo: Dr. Dre was already a notable musician, at least in Los Angeles, prior to his N. …

W.A days. As “Dr. J,” the house DJ at Eve’s After Dark (Compton’s answer to the Cavern Club) and a member of World Class Wreckin’ Cru, Dre had already established himself, landing a regular radio gig and selling an estimated 50,000 copies of the Cru’s records through unofficial channels.

In the Photo: Dre — positioned between Ice Cube and Eazy E — almost blends into the background of the Posse record cover. He’s neither wearing any sort of distinctive clothing nor taking any sort stance in particular. It’s almost as though he knows the picture will go on an album that the group will not promote in earnest. And he very well may have.

Dre’s longtime publicist did not return a phone call or e-mail for The Posse Project, but Ronin Ro’s excellent biography on Dr. Dre makes an important point about the cover: Macola, the group’s first label, likely knew the group was shopping for another label at the time it commissioned the picture.

As Arabian Prince noted in Ro’s book, when a band got a deal with a new label, Macola’s M.O. was to quickly release every song the group had done. Dre, ever the savvy businessman, may have wanted to play ball with Macola as long as he needed to until N.W.A’s deal with Priority was done, without laying all the group’s cards on the table by stylizing the cover. Dre didn’t talk to us, so we don’t know for sure, but it seems possible. Candyman is on the cover of Posse . Another hilarious coincidence concerns the group’s label, Priority Records.

When N.W.A signed with Priority the group became only the label’s second signed act. The other was The California Raisins.

That’s right: The first non-compilation album released by Priority was The California Raisins Sing the Hit Songs . The second was Straight Outta Compton .

As Ro writes, the label’s bosses made a mint on the Raisins and wanted to re-invest the cash in something edgy. N.W.A certainly fit the bill. So not only did Eazy E put in the old tape, Marvin Gaye’s Greatest Hits , Eazy and Dre got a leg up in the music business because of a cartoon band’s cover of Gaye’s “Heard It Through the Grapevine.”

From there, Dr. Dre’s career has had only the most minor of setbacks. His work with N.W.A was stellar, his solo debut, The Chronic , is regarded as one of the best rap albums of all time, and nearly everyone he’s produced (Eminem, 50 Cent, The Game) has had success.

Now Detox , a long-term project that is fast becoming the new Chinese Democracy .

People Don’t Know: Despite being the most important musician of the past quarter-century, Dr. Dre is not a musician, says N.W.A’s former manager Jerry Heller.

“Something more significant than the fact that Dre wasn’t a real gangster was the fact that he wasn’t a real musician,” Heller tells me. “Dre, only recently, has learned how to fool around on the piano. None of the guys in the group was a musician. I mean, Yella played a little drums, but none of them were musicians, which is part of the whole genre with gangster rap. Rather than being a creator of music, Dre was an assembler of music. It’s a very interesting genre, unlike anything that came before. We’ve never had really successful musicians before that weren’t real musicians.”

People Don’t Know: Dr. Dre’s departure from N.W.A hurt Eazy E emotionally, says MC Ren.

” Eazy was hurt by all that shit,” Ren tells me. “He was hurt because him and Dre started out back in the day, back in Compton. Before all the record company shit, they were a DJ crew, High-Powered Productions, doing house parties and shit like that. Dre was the tightest producer ever, putting out hits on him, and he was hurting like a motherfucker. Especially when them dis records came out — hurt Eazy like a motherfucker.”

People Don’t Know: Dr. Dre’s departure spelled the end of N.W.A in a way Ice Cube’s didn’t, says Jerry Heller.

“The significant thing about the end of N.W.A was really when Dre left. After Cube left, there was still an N.W.A, but when Dre left, there was no N.W.A,” Heller says. “He was certainly the most integral part of the group, and the most valuable asset Ruthless Records had.”

People Don’t Know: Dre’s first effort for his own label, Aftermath Entertainment, suffered because Dre was too busy with the business side of things to do the production work he normally excelled at, says Jerry Heller.

“That’s why the first Aftermath record was so bad. He did become distracted, and that Aftermath record is really the only bad thing Dre ever did in his life,” Heller says. “When you look at Dre, he did World Class Wreckin’ Crue, Turn Out The Lights . . . This guy has been at the very top of his game since 1986. He certainly is the most important producer of the entire rap period.”

Alicia Keys is looking forward to starting a family - but only when she’s fulfilled her ambition to create a Broadway musical. …

The R&B singer has been romantically linked to rap producer Swizz Beatz since September 2008, after the breakdown of his marriage to singer Mashonda.

The pair reportedly got engaged in January, and now Keys has spoken of her desire to settle down and have children after she has expanded her acting career.

She tells the DailyRecord.co.uk, “I absolutely am very interested in starting a family. It’s one of the most beautiful experiences to have in this life and I am looking forward to it when it is my time. I have a lot of things I still want to do.

“As far as retirement goes, I just wanted to have the ability, if I choose, to be able to do so. But I feel that I am just getting started. I love acting and producing, and I am developing some ideas for TV and film, and also for Broadway. I am excited about that. I really want to create a new musical. I think it’s time.”

Published on: March 19 2010 at 12:48 PM

The answer is there wasn’t any, and that’s how curator Phillip Hyman likes it.

A lot of things have changed in Charleston’s art scene since Hyman hosted the first Suitcase Art Show at Cumberland’s four years ago. …

The music venue/bar on King Street was right next door to vintage clothing store Granny’s Goodies, which donated 30 old suitcases for the 2006 exhibition.

Artists transformed the cases into unique fold-out paintings, dioramas, shrines, and sculptures. Some focused on decorating the outside of the case, while others crammed colorful baubles inside. Participants included Hyman, Jonathan Nicholson, Eleazar Cruz, and Phillip Estes. Geoff Cormier contributed one with a shadow puppet. On opening night, live music was provided by local musical acts Lindsay Holler, A Decent Animal, and Sleepyhead.

By late 2007, Granny’s Goodies was gone and Cumberland’s was closing its doors. An Apple store now sits in its place. Corporate uniformity has taken the place of rock and punk bands, mystery beers, and heavy metal karaoke.

In March of this year, Hyman revived the Suitcase Show for one night only at the Olde North Charleston Meeting Place on East Montague Avenue. Hyman, who curated a TV-themed exhibition at the same site last year, wanted to let people know about the cases like “a traveling salesman,” circumventing the traditional art show invitational approach - meaning no advertising, no call for entries, not even a Facebook post. “A lot of artists you usually see in the paper lately didn’t respond,” he says. “Instead we got the ones that are hungry and doing it for art’s sake.” People didn’t come just to drink and pose - they came for the art and music courtesy of Subterranean Bleu Mind(s), founded by hip hop/groove duo DizZyDeTaiLs and Halfblind, who back their act with projected light patterns.

Three weeks before the show, Hyman picked up a CD of Bleu music that would inspire a stack of live art. “A major part of the concept for me was to showcase the music by painting to it, and have people looking at it as part of the art show, putting it in a different realm,” he says.

Live painting to music has been popular at recent events like Blume and Kulture Klash, but in those shows Hyman points out that the artists “aren’t really trying to tell a story.” At the new Suitcase Show, the music was presented as an artform accompanied by the paintings, and the audience went with the flow. “The crowd followed us around without anyone telling them what was going on,” says the curator. “I’ve never seen that before.”

The artist and audience demographic spanned 9-year-old schoolchildren to first-time adult artists to old hands. Some came wearing gray pants and Dockside shirts, others with torn jeans and pierced faces. The suitcase art was just as diverse, with contributions from Geoff Cormier, Leigh Wells, and many others. Most impressive was Hyman’s steampunk case, lit from within with delicate cogs and wheels like the baggage of his ever-inventive mind.

Hyman isn’t the only indie curator in town, but more than anyone else, he inspires artists to make art for the sheer pleasure of making it instead of moping around worrying about buying materials, advertising budgets, gallery showings, or exhibiting to the “right people.” For the rest of us, he offers a reminder that art doesn’t even have to have a physical substance - it can consist of sound or light - and it certainly doesn’t have to be framed or hung on a wall to move its viewers. It can be constructed out of donations from a vintage clothing store, an old TV set, or even packed up in a suitcase.

The former Death Row Records boss is the focus of young filmmakers Jabari Henley and Shane Taylor’s short, The Mic, which pokes fun at rap stars like Eminem and Dr. Dre.

Knight agreed to rant about his rivals as a favour to pal Big U - Henley’s father. …

Producer Josh Sands, who oversaw the project at the Hollywood Film & Acting Academy, says, “Jabari and Shane came to me with this idea and said they could get Suge Knight on camera. I wasn’t convinced but then he just showed up. He was here for about two hours.

“He’s a very intimidating character, but a real natural in front of the camera.”

The short was shot three weeks ago and has only just been completed - because Knight’s comments had to be heavily edited.

Sands adds, “He doesn’t mention Dr. Dre or Eminem by name but it’s clear who he’s talking about and some of the things he said were really graphic. Legally we couldn’t release some parts of the interview.

“In the end we had about five minutes and our plan is to put the film online to help promote the Hollywood Film & Acting Academy.”

Maybe it’s just an unfortunate twist of circumstances, or simply bad luck, but in most cases over the past two years when I went to Vitosha, I ended up paying 35 leva for the all-inclusive day pass only to be told that due to poor weather conditions, or otherwise, most facilities were closed apart from the lower Lale. So in the end you are left with no alternative but to ski there all day long and, let’s face it, Laleto is a decent run but it’s short and tedious. Once you get bored of it - and you inevitably do after a couple of hours - you are left with no alternative but to continue skiing there until you reach mind-boggling stupor.

There are ways of beating the system, saving money, and having a cracker - if you have a little adventurous spirit and are willing to experiment. Most importantly, I assure anyone reading this that as far as avalanches are concerned, the route is 100 per cent safe. There are still five or so weeks of skiing left on the books and, weather permitting, you may attempt it. The plan is simple: get to Cherni Vruh - Vitosha’s tallest summit at 2290m - and once at the top, ski down until you reach civilisation, a journey that may take a full day. There are several such routes and the safest and most popular one will be outlined here.

Reach Aleko ski complex with the 66 bus from Hladilnika borough in Sofia that costs four leva, or the Simenovo gondola which will set you back a tenner. Once up on the mountain, you may take a single ticket with the Romanski chair lift (a service unavailable last year) and scale Cherni Vruh, requiring a 30-minute climb. Better yet, if you fancy a true workout, attempt scaling it from Aleko up through the Stenata slope (the Wall) for about two-and-a-half hours with full kit, bergen and skis on your back. Reaching the weather observatory station up on the top will provide you with a breathtaking view of Rila Mountains and Stara Planina as well as the murk that is Sofia below.

Although refreshments - coffee, tea and warm food - are available at the summit, you are going to ski through half of the mountain later on, so take a thermos with tea, food for a full day, water, spare shirts and socks (you will sweat bullets on the way up). When ready to leave, stick to the winter markings (four metre poles painted in yellow and black) leading to the plateau. The aforementioned should be negotiated inside an hour - a bit of downhill and then a bit of cross country. The slope is gentle, the scenery is breathtaking, there is zero possibility of you launching an avalanche - even if you attempted it - and the experience is cathartic. You will then reach a derelict and abandoned ski complex called Konyarnika.

Konyarnika is on the border between the Alpine zone and the treeline. Thereafter you ski on a three-metre wide alley sloping gently through the thick pine forest until you reach Vetrovala 45 minutes further down. It is mostly downhill but there are the odd 100-metre flat sections where a bit of pushing will be necessary. In two-and-a-half hours (at regular pace) you should have reached the Vetrovala complex where a pit stop is well advised. In good winter, you should be able to follow the forest paths and ski down to Zlatnite Mostove, then proceed to Knyajevo either from Malinazha (the junction is just over the Zlatnite branching left from the main road on the way to Momina Skala) or take the ski road from Elenite and head down via Byalata Voda. This full trip is great but only possible if there is enough snow - a 10-plus cm cover in Sofia is a good sign that it’s feasible.

Apart from doing something different, it is also about pure maths. Regardless how good a skier you think you are, you cannot ski on Laleto more than 16 times from 9.30am until 4pm. The 15-minute journey with the chair lift after every descent and the the long queue means that for every 20 minutes of waiting, you ski for just two minutes. If you can ski down Laleto three times in an hour, that means you have actually skied for six minutes. In a full day, you end up skiing about 50 minutes and for that you pay 35 leva.

Alternatively, for the price of four leva, you may climb the mountain for two hours and then ski for four hours continuously all the way to Kniajevo. Common sense is essential, however. Don’t attempt this on your own if it’s your first time. Take a local with you and avoid doing it in bad weather or fog. In the case of the latter, you may end up getting lost and descend the wrong side of the mountain and end up in Pernik. Then you’d really wish you’d been hit by an avalanche.