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NOW BOARDING
Snowboarding is catching on with hip hop heads.

Outside the Snow Shed Base Lodge in Killington, Vt., snow-capped mountains pierce fluffy clouds, and a frigid wind whistles through the trees. Inside, a huge crowd of snowboarding kids gets hyped to Gang Starr, the main musical event at the 2001 Brooklyn, Vermont (BKVT) sports and music fest. In case you didn't know, snowboarding and hip hop are the hot odd couple in the cold season. "Both are about self-expression, so it makes sense that they go together," says black pro snowboarder Ben Hinkley, 29. "You can see the urban influence in snowboarding in the dress and attitude."

According to the National Sporting Goods Association, snowboarding is the third fastest growing sport in the U.S., increasing in participation by 55 percent over the last five years. Hinkley, who took sixth place in Big Air at last year's Winter X Games, says he'd like to help draw more minorities to the slopes. "Every black kid looks for a black hero in a sport," says Hinkley, who is putting a face to snowboarding for kids of color. Hinkley, whose nickname is Hink Dogg, has landed a clothing sponsorship with Jay-Z's Rocawear and is working with Roc-A-Fella on a DVD highlighting the snowboarding/hip hop connect.

Thanks to the annual BKVT event, which began in 1999 (and will become the International Summit of Sports & Music in April and take place in Colorado), many of rap's household names made that link firsthand. "We literally brought the urban community to the mountains," says Jonathan Levine, publisher of THE FRIDGE, the snowboarding and music magazine that produces the event. "We had Fat Joe on a snowmobile and Cappadonna on the half-pipe."

The experience turned out to be more than a onetime thing. "I fell in love with snowboarding," says rapper Afu-Ra, who performed at the 2001 festival. "You feel like you're at one with yourself out there. Being from Brooklyn, the mountains weren't really a reality for me, but that trip woke me up. Since then, I've boarded in the Swiss Alps and France." Rapper Mystic conceded that snowboarding, like anything worthwhile, wasn't easy, but the gain was worth the pain. "We fell on our asses all the way down the mountain," she says. "But we had lots of fun doing it." Giselle Wasfie

Check out Hinkley at the Winter X Games on ESPN Jan.31-Feb.2.

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