Interview By Bobieh Ansah

A while back I caught up with the charismatic Michael and lovely Antonia. They are the founders of a variety show called Adlib.

Adlib showcases acts ranging from singing and poetry to rapping and comedy. We discussed the high points and low points of their journey thus far and the plans they have for the future.

This is an example of a business born from university, that started crawling, then walking, but was knocked down. But now their back on their feet again!

Check out the interview.

So tell me a bit about yourself first Michael

Michael: Yea my name is Michael master apps aka Mr. fun loving enjoying life Appiah world Appiah life. Ermmm I’m 22 I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for quite a while.

What you laughing for (at Antonia)?

Antonia: because he’s not 22

Michael: I’m 24, but I’m 22 that’s my acting age and I carry on with that. So yea that’s me.

Antonia: I’m Antonia I’m 25 and yea that’s me…. (Laughing) I’m Antonia and I’m 25 that’s what defines me.

You don’t do anything extracurricular?

Antonia: Are you asking me this question because you know the answer?

Yeah

Antonia:( Laugher)I do cheerleading.

have you won anything?

Antonia: yes we’re undefeated.

Ok so what is Adlib and when did it start?

Michael: Adlib is different.

Antonia: Adlib is very wide are you talking about Adlib open mic night or Adlib?

Well everything, imagine I’ve never heard of Adlib?

Michael: Adlib is a company that we started in 2007, we don’t even know why we started it. We just thought look, there’s allot of things going on and they’re not doing quite well and we thought we could come up with something better.

Antonia: Yeah, a new idea.

Michael: that encompasses a variety of things that encompasses music comedy and poetry. But live music, because there wasn’t allot of live music at university. So we just kicked it off from there.

Antonia: it was the first night to have all different acts such as live music, comedy, poetry and lyricist.

Combined, then everyone jumped on board and started copying?

Antonia: your words not mine. (Laughter)

I think you’ve already answered this but what separates Adlib from the other variety shows?

Antonia: I think it’s definitely the live band and the mature crowd.

Michael: We always go for quality that’s the thing about us. We can bring in so many people just for the sake of it. I think we’re tough on ourselves in a sense that we always go for quality.

Because if you out to other night events and its good the first half and then the second the second half is completely rubbish. We’re our own critics and we try to avoid that.

What kind of act do you prefer and what acts do you think get the best reception from the crowd?

Michael: I like that question, well for that one, I’m going to have to say (long pause) I just enjoy people that can vibe with the crowd and bring a good message and for me it doesn’t matter what it is as long as you’re good you’re good.

Antonia: I think singers that can sing in tune and make you feel their emotion. Those are the best acts oh and rappers as well, especially the ones that show their personality on stage. I think the crowd accepts them more rather than those who just come to show their talent.

What problems did you encounter when you first set up Adlib?

Michael: Finding a venue.

Antonia: It took a whole year to find a venue.

Michael: exaggeration 7 months.

Antonia: it was a long time because it had to be right.

What been the biggest learning curve for Adlib?

Michael: Erm…. There have been many learning curves. (Laughter) one of our biggest learning curves is understanding your market. What people like, what people don’t like, because our crowds can be a bit, how….. can I say “sensitive”.

So like we’ve gotten a comedian who’s been a bit brash and it’s not gone down well and the whole nights was dead.

Antonia: I think we’ve trained people to think like that because we don’t have any swearing at the show, when people hear swearing they…. It obviously sticks out a lot more.

Antonia: The biggest learning curve would be to keep the business face on. Because everyone wants a favor. You have to stick to your guns and think from a business point of view. But still not being too harsh. It’s about finding the balance.

Can you elaborate on that?

Antonia: so say acts wants guest list or they want to be paid a certain amount, people that are coming to watch the show.
Everyone’s your friend, you build a relationship with the people that come to watch the show so everyone want freebies.

What’s been the highest point for ADLIB thus far?

Antonia: I think maybe our first year anniversary when we had a big show in the Bloomsbury theatre and probably just selling out every month.

Getting to a point where you didn’t have to promote anymore. People knew that as the doors were opening at 7.30 if you weren’t there you weren’t getting in. That was a high point. So then we could just put all our effort into the quality of the night rather than still having to promote the night.

So you mentioned earlier that there was a pause for a while in the operations of ADLIB. What caused that?

Antonia: well…. The structure of the company needed reassessing (Laughter), So we wanted to fix things internally first and get on the new road basically.

So it’s much better?

Michael: No (laugher)…. I mean yes. It works better now because we have a greater sense of responsibility. We know it’s down to us.

Antonia: there are less people now for the responsibility to fall on to.

So does seeing so many acts reduce the impact they have on you?

With our night the people we bring we try to create a lot of variety. We go to other shows and the same acts go to every show too so, we see the same act over and over, but comedians, I can watch their set 4 times and still laugh.

Michael: For us it doesn’t. There are always new acts.

Where do you see Adlib in 5 years?

Michael: Bringing international artist to Adlib in a sense that when they come over to do their promotional tours they’ll come and do a set at ADLIB.

Also having ADLIB at festivals so, we’ll have a stage, an ADLIB stage I.e. Glastonbury and tea in the park.

So what advice would you give to anyone who wanted to set up a Variety Show?

Antonia: I think the main thing is having a good team, you need to have a reliable team. People that you know will follow through and make the right decisions and have…sense basically. Because then you won’t be able to delegate roles, you’ll being doing everything yourself.

Thanks for your time guys, hope to chat up soon with you.

Check them out on facebook and follow them on twitter

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I will seriously recommend everyone, anybody, every poet, aspiring to be, to get a copy of the master piece that has being put together by George Obizulike( Poet Ivy )…

I have actually just finished ordering 2 copies of this masterpiece just before writing this post..
Of course i am looking to give a copy to one lucky reader on YHP…Stay Tuned for that and connected!

He is an inspiration to young entrepreneurs, young poets that aspire to take their craft, creativity, feelings, turning it into art…This is art…I have been given a preview of some of the poems in this book and all i can say is that this dude will take your breath away…

He is also having his BOOK SIGNING IN WATERSTONES AT KINGSTON UPON THAMES, LONDON, ENGLAND ON 17TH APRIL 2010; I encourage everyone to be there, getting a signed book from the author himself.

The Great Depression is a collection of 38 heartfelt, relative and thought-provoking poems written by, Poet Ivy, who is a philosophical poet that seeks to capture and feed the human soul with different emotions through his unique heartfelt poetry.

These poems are a reflection of the bittersweet realities that life presents to us. Some are fictional and some are factual.

He has been kind enough to provide YHP and its reader with some of his poems, something that has been building the hype to the debut.

Some of his poems..Some of his thoughts…Some Teasers…

There’s nothing

Let me know, Let me Know

Earthquake.Heartbreak.Haiti

Going in for the kill

HE, SHE, YOU AND I, ARE ALL LOST(My Favourite just because i believe 80% of the population of the world are lost

Get a copy of the Book from Waterstones…

Be in the flow…

let go of your fear; of your need to be in control

for it imprisons your dreams.

Breathe deeply in the darkness…

an illusion cast forth by your light;

no other can take your place.

Let the world be blinded by your majesty…

a beacon to those struggling to find their way;

for it is your divinity to shine like the star you truly are.

Go; enter the dragon’s den and reclaim your heart.

***************************

© Cheryl Hopkins, 2nd Jan 2006

Inspiring you to do work you love

www.Changeitliveit.co.uk

Alex Pryce is a 21 year old poet, originally from Bangor, Northern Ireland, who is currently studying English at the University of Leicester.

Alex received a Creative Sparks award from Ignite! (then a National Endowments for Science, Technology and the Arts pilot programme) in June 2006. In 2007, she also received a bursary from the John Hewitt Society, and in 2008 was the winner of the G.S. Fraser Poetry Prize. Her poems have been published in Gists and Piths, Pomegranate, Agenda Broadsheet, Mslexia, Fortnight and nthposition.

Alex is Director of PoetCasting (www.poetcasting.co.uk), a UK based poetry podcasting enterprise, created in 2007. The site is funded by the Arts Council England. She has also provided podcasting services to the National Poetry Society, Salt Publishing and currently works on Magma Poetry’s website.

In 2008, she won the Art and Culture Woman of the Future Award, presented by Real Business Magazine, supported by Shell. She has featured in $uccess magazine and the RSA Journal (Spring 2009). Alex is a member of the Inspiral Women’s Network, and is a Fellow of the RSA.

Internet poet Alex Pryce has been dubbed the ‘one to watch` in the art world by judges of the Women of the Future Award. The youngest category winner at just 20 years old, Alex picked up the Booz & Company Art and Culture Woman of the Future Award for her work conceiving and launching PoetCasting, a popular poetry podcasting enterprise which secured Arts Council funding earlier this year.

The judges said: “Alex`s success is an outstanding example of what can be achieved with clear vision and dedication -showing established organisations operating in this field the way forward. She is also plainly interested in her work for what it can do for others rather than for her own gratification.”

PoetCasting (www.poetcasting.co.uk) showcases poets from all backgrounds who share the medium of the internet – a place that poets can be read and heard in one place. The site features the traditional sense of podcasting where poets simply read their work. The initiative has received funding by NESTA – supporting innovation in science, technology and the arts – and Ignite! which works with young people to promote creativity.

Alex said: “The arts has historically been a man`s world – we haven`t even had a female poet laureate yet – so it is fantastic to be recognised. It would be amazing to one day be a mentor for women in the arts like the director of the Poetry Society, Jules Mann, has been to me.”

Read and think of every single line.

I want to plead to you all with these lines
Would you all be able to take in all these rhymes?
Though I’m smothered with personification
And I gathered metaphors & alliteration.
What am I without my maker?
Who’s a servant without his master?
I hope in the rain we can see the clouds
And when it snows we would see the sun
If you cause your neighbour pain
Hope you don’t feel no joy
Cause emotions are not toys
We all sometimes get in the boxing ring
But when punches start to swing
We ask who put us in there?
Cause we are consumed with terror & fear;
Mobster Al Capone said he killed no-one
But his orders dropped dead more than sixty-one
People like him killed for the thrill
Not thinking how the creator might feel

Everyday from sky news, 37 dead in Iraq, 22 bombed in Afghanistan is all we get
More doom and gloom is all they get,
Would they be any green shoots?
when would the soldier in green quit letting off his shoots?
There say war is peace
did they have to go to war
to make peace?
This paradox is proud yet
literally lethal and also
callously catastrophic to war victims.

God is number 1 spot
Can poet ivy contain the number 2 spot?
Let’s be as graceful as a ballet dancer
Let’s be as grateful as a tipped valet parker
Let’s be as sharp in precision and speed as Ali

Just cease to be callous
And cause your neighbour no loss,
Don’t go in to kill for a thrill,
Think of how the creator would feel;
Reflect richer, don’t make poor choices,
Cause your neighbour no losses,
I’m hoping you will understand
Oh, I’m hoping you should understand.

COPYRIGHT POET IVY 2009

The Great Depression
A collection of poems by Poet Ivy out in March.

Suli Breaks just recently graduated from University of Sheffield with a degree in law.

Suli breaks is a poet looking to use his witty controversial, yet enlightening style, he is slowly becoming the crowd’s favourite. Using a style which he describes as a “mixture of everything he has ever seen or known” he light heatedly jokes that his aim is to make “Poetry kool!”.

Hey Suli, how is it going? Welcome to YHP.

Due to the grace of God, I am fine thank you very much.

Before we move, can you quickly give the YHP readers some background information about yourself?

Suli Breaks aka Suli Breezy aka Mr Riddle Riddle(Laughter), I am a Poet, who has performed at numerous venues across the country, has been featured in the Voice, was winner of Aspire Talent 2008 and was also a finalist in the 2009 Uni’s Got Talent Competition.

You’ve just graduated from the university, how do you feel closing that chapter in your life, or are you going for a masters?

Rahh…it was ALOT. ALOT in the sense that it was a big experience, but also in the sense that it was ALOT of work.
I’m half and half right now. It’s quite a relief, because finally I get to work on my own schedule, no one telling that this has to be due at this time and I have to write this, exams are this time etc.
However, it is also quite intimidating, because this is where everything starts. Everything I do from this point onwards is a step towards creating the life I want to be living in the future. It’s like every move is geared toward the bigger picture, whereas for me personally in the University it was like your always working towards the next exam or next assignment. I rarely looked at the whole thing in context.

So how did the name come about?

It would seem quite confusing to most readers.
Quick summary, if you’re a Baller (basketball player), you know what it means when you “break someone’s ankles”. Let’s just say I did quite a lot of ankle breaking in my day. My name being Suliaman, everyone already called me Suli. So it was quite ingenious that my coaches’ brother Ben Peters came up with the name “Suli Breaks” and it stuck.

So tell us? How did you get into poetry?

I didn’t really get into Poetry, you could say that it got into me. I did my first performance, because someone had told me to come and rap at a show(probably trying to embarrass me) and I told them that I don’t rap no more and that I would do a poem instead. BADDA BING BADDA BOOM!! Here I am now. That show went extremely well as could have imagined.

What do you feel makes a good poem?

Being yourself. Channelling what you feel and believe. It sounds corny, but that’s what works for me. It’s like the poem is an extension of yourself. Things I talk about in a poem would be the same things I talk about on the phone to my wife.

Describe your poems in 5 words?

Inspiring, Creative, Insightful, Thought provoking (that’s 2 I know) and lastly Suli Breaks(my poems are basically my views brought to you in different mediums)

Who are your roles models/influences?

Being a Muslim, my obvious role model is the prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) who practices I attempt to emulate to bring me closer to God.
Aside from that, my role models are everyone who is the best at what they do. If it comes to basketball-Kobe Bryant, Acting-Denzel Washington. I just admire people who have strived to perfect their art of are recognised as one of the best in their field.
I also have another one, but it’s a secret because that person doesn’t know( I don’t think) so I will keep it to myself.

What is your favourite poem from your collection?

I don’t have one you know. I like different ones at different times.

What is your favourite poem and poet?

I don’t really listen to poet or follow it to have any favourite ones, but I really like this one though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iVAqePmZMI

Do you have a writing routine?

Not really.

What do you do away from writing poems?

I used to play basketball, but right now I’m stressed trying to find a job so am at home most of the time. I hit the gym quite often too.

What do you feel it takes to stand out as a poet?

You have to hit the crowd at angles they don’t expect. You know they expect poets to be like this and like that, but if you show them that you’re a little different that usually catches their attention.

Who is your favourite poet at the moment?

Jay-Z (Bursts in Laughter)
I really don’t pay too much attention to poetry!!

What current project are you working on and would you like to share it with the readers?

Well, those of you that are avid fans will have been aware that I did a weekly competition called “Riddle Riddle” last year. (Check Facebook group: Riddle Riddle for more details).
I am planning to launch Season 2 when semester resumes this year God willing. That’s all I’m giving away.

This year’s project is going to involve quite a few more parties.

Who are you currently reading?

Stephanie Myers.
Well, actually i’m reading James Caan “The Real Deal”, but I feel it is my duty to highlight how amazing Myers books are. I have just finished reading “Breaking Dawn.” She is hands down one of the best writers I have ever read the “Twilight” series is actually too SICK!! Let me not get too carried away and lose half my fan base.
No homo!!

If you weren’t writing poems, what else do you think you will be pursuing as a career?

Errrmm….Basketball. However, the game kind of outgrew me, literally. I got too short to play.(Laughter). I would probably be pursuing a law career as I did study a law degree.

If you could offer only one piece of advice to your fellow poets, what would it be?

Well, I think they should just try and be themselves that sounds corny too, but I mean don’t try to do what I’m doing or the next person is doing. Just do whatever feels most natural to you. As James Caan says ( I told you I been reading): Observe the masses and do the opposite.

So what’s next for you?

People need to wait and see, because I have the kind of ideas that people couldn’t imagine, so it’s hard to describe and only really time will reveal. Just know that God willing, I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

Thanks for your time.
YHP Wishes you the best.

Contact Information

Facebook- Suli Breaks
Myspace- www.myspace.com/sulibreaks11
Youtube- http://www.youtube.com/user/sulibreezy

Interviewed & Edited by Joseph Ajilore

Congratulations on getting this far in life
It’s not by your power
Not by your might.
It’s important to seal the moments which matter,
It’s essential to do everything to make these
Minutes last longer.
What better way than to purchase a digital camera?

Fill the camera with positivity,
Optimism, faith and the
Belief in something good.
This spits out an amazing picture.

A picture capturing an idyllic life
A joyous utopian situation;
Where nothing can really bother you.
Its prophetic, it’s sacred perhaps even
Too good to be true.
Now you know the secret.
Add these spare parts to the camera
Over and over again.
To guarantee a high quality picture.

Digital cameras are the way forward
Their fast. Quick and easy to use.
What else could give such good results?
For high definition at its best,
Look after this precious electrical device
Keep it away from liquids,
Disallow it from even getting splashed
With a drop of negativity, self chastisement
Resentment or regret.

In instances where the camera
Is submerged in a deep pool of such dangerous liquids
Where there seems no hope of survival
Take it to the specialist engineer
He’s a spiritual consultant at the weekends
The creator, Alpha and Omega.
When the camera seems drenched
This engineer can return it
As good as new.

Be mindful of the flash
Sometimes it can be too bright
A camera filled with wisdom, can give out a blinding flash
This flash may open your eyes to things you never expected.
A sharp and well focused revelation
Of a lifestyle you no longer need.

Good luck with your new camera
Follow these simple instructions
And you can believe in the camera warranty.
A great photo is promised each time
You take a stroll
Through life.

Written By Binta Balogun
Copyright 2009 Binta Balogun

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