Alice - no comply frontside shove-it, Birmingham. Photo: Rob Whiston.
Birmingham's Alice Smith was an unstoppable force of four wheeled productivity across the course of 2021. Not only did she land a Push interview in Issue 2 of the mag, she found herself being added to the U.K. Nike SB roster, joined the revamped Rollersnakes team, hosted several massively successful community events through Brum Girl Skate, and ventured to the coast for her first proper road trip with the joint Supertoxic and Karma crew.
I doubt very much that Alice will be slowing things down at all in 2022, either.
As we make our way through the first week of the year, Alice has kindly spared some time to get involved with our Best of 2021 proceedings, so have a scroll below to see what selected highlights from the last 12 months she's decided to send your way...
Skater of 2021: Marcus Palmer 10,000%! As well as being the most insane skater, he’s also one of the loveliest people around and inspires me a lot, both inside and outside of skating.
Video part of 2021: Really enjoyed watching Maite's Broski 2 Proski, the most stylish execution of tricks as well as being so fun to watch. Get Lesta's Darling for sure was an insane watch, and any and all of Mark Suciu's parts blew my mind.
Quote of 2021: I've got this notes page on my phone called Funny things I hear, so I'm gonna provide a few memorable sections from that to answer this. "I can't kickflip but I'll kick the fuck out of you". "That's livin' sweetie, you gotta get used to it or you die." "It's bad to be this rad".
Song of 2021: Andy Stott's Faith in Strangers is one of my favourite songs of this year, if goosebumps could be audibly represented then this song is as close as it comes. Anyone reading this should also watch the music video on YouTube, the videography is nuts. Also want to give страсть (strast) by Trudge a mention, because it's another sick song that I can't even confine to a genre.
Favourite photo of 2021: Marcus's tre over that Wilko rail in Alfreton is nuts. Rob captured Marcus's style so well and the picture is flawless.
Favourite non-skating pastime of 2021: The past few months I've really found myself getting into crochet again. I've been able to do it since I can remember as my nan taught me at a young age, but Uni took up so much of the past few years, I had to carefully ration out my free time between work and skating, so not much space for anything else. Since graduating, I've started to pick crochet back up, and I am really enjoying it.
Event of 2021: We hosted a Brum Girl Skate event at Bournbrook DIY which was loads of fun. Bob Sanderson's birthday jam at Lightwoods was also sick. Lots of old and new faces, really loved properly seeing the Brum scene all together in one place.
Road trip of 2021: The down south trip with Supertoxic and Karma was great. My first proper trip, and it really set the bar high. Feel like I've never laughed so much in a weekend, got to meet lots of cool people, really got me excited for future road trips. We also did a Brum Girl Skate trip around some UK cities, which had the nicest group of people with the best environment.
Skater to watch out for in 2022: Astrid Cohen. The sickest style alongside a really good bag of tricks. Heelflipped Southbank like it was nothing and she's only been skating a few years?? Insane!! Excited to see how she progresses next year.
The thing you’re most looking forward to in 2022: I guess just making more memories with those around me, whether that be through skating-related stuff like trips and jams, or non-skating related stuff, I just wanna have fun really.
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