Grind

F.S.B.S. for skaters by skaters G:Why do you skate? LG: I like skating, it’s my passion. I don’t know, it’s just like a thing I grew up doing. By 6 pm on a Thursday, skaters at Defremery Park in West Oakland have been skating all day. Skaters of all ages, from a seven year old kid on a scooter, to 20-somethings doing kick-flips and grinds, are getting ready to leave. The sun is setting, and they slowly disperse, getting in a friends car, or driving off solo. Here’s what they had to say about skating: London Gix, 21 London Gix, 21 G: When did you get started? LG: 11 G: Why? LG: It wasn’t much to do- I’m from East Oakland. It was either like, violence, or something else with your time, so I was G: Why do you skate? TL: It’s crazy...I had moved to a homeless shelter in Berkeley by the Target and by the race track, and basically the skate park was right next door. I used to go there every day for like 30 days. I couldn’t afford a skateboard then. A guy just came up to me like “Why you don’t own a skateboard?” I was like, “I can’t afford a skateboard,” and he went in his car and gave me a skateboard and ever since that day til now I been just skating. G: So how would you define skate culture, if you could? TL: Taking risks and overcoming your fears. G: Do you feel like skate culture and Bay Area culture are linked? TL: Being an African male, people used to asked me “Oh, you skateboard?” I’m like “Yeah, I skateboard”, and they used to just be amazed, and that’s like [when I was] 13; I’m about to turn 27, so for like 10, 13 years, I can see literally how it opened up to different races. For the Bay Area, it [was] more gangster, hyphy movements, so I see how it mixed with skateboarding culture now, cause everybody loved to know a skateboarder, and it’s just a beautiful thing. It kinda just mixed with the style of swinging your cars, hyphy stuff, to where most people that see skateboarders, they’re like “Oh my god, like you’re crazy for doing that. I couldn’t even do that.” So I think it’s like a lot of respect [for us] as a skateboarder to be able to do what we do. G: Did you ever listen to The Pack*- Tamba Lenoh, 26 TL: ”Yeah-Vans? I remember, man they was so big that a lot of people made the fuck vans shoes song**. But, everybody liked it. It was just something for people to enjoy and rap about. Which I love, and that’s what I could understand from the skateboard community: they’re like “Damn, why y’all gonna just come and take our stuff, make it even cooler.” Cause in the skate community, they love Vans, they love Thrasher, all that. We all love it. But when it comes to the outside community, they just take it and then they just run with it and they just like “Oh, we wearing Thrasher, we wearing Vans, let’s get it.” And it’s just like: wait, wait wait wait wait, those are skate shoes for us to skateboard; that’s our hoodies, and y’all just tryna take our fame and make it y’all own. (*The Pack: Bay Area hip-hop group including members Lil B, Stunnaman, Young L, and Lil Uno, responsible for the hit song “Vans” ) (**Fuck Vans: song by Drino Man) just doing skateboarding, [and] going to school and shit. G: Did you feel like you found a community within the skate community? LG: Yeah I mean when the skate park was being built there was a community starting at the same time cause people were just starting to skate. G: Are you tryna go pro? LG: Nah. Hell nah. I’m just skating for fun, it’s just a fun thing to do. G: Why do you skate? JD: I skate because it makes me happy...It just, it brings joy to my life, so I decided to start doing it. G: I know there’s a lot of people in like Japan, and like all across the world who are like wearing these brands, and are just now trying to get into skating. Why do you think it resonates so much across the world, with so many different kinds of people? JD: To be honest, I’m not sure because - at least when I was younger, when I thought about skateboarding, I hardly saw people doing it...I’m kinda happy that I see it happening but I don’t know why it caught on so much. It just jumped out of nowhere, cause it’s not like- I mean we’ve had the X-Games for awhile now, we’ve had street league going on for a couple years now. G: Can you tell me about those things? JD: Sure! I started watching some of the other skate contests, like some of the SLS, the Tampa pro stuff... those are skate contests run by like actual skaters... the X-games is kinda run by big corporations...it’s not specifically made for skaters by skaters. A lot of the contests that I watch are by skaters, for skaters...it’s all supported by skaters. G: Are you tryna go pro? Jaymise Davis, 22 Jaymise Davis, 22 JD: Me? Not at all. I’m tryna help other people go pro. Hopefully I could start my own company and promote others, because I, personally, I’m not gonna push myself that hard. But there are people out there that’ll just do whatever it takes to make it big and they’re underrated: they aren’t being seen. So...I could be that guy that could help them get that recognition. 4 5