Photos and interview by Jonathan Becker

So what’s good? You came over on the bus today?

I was actually at this girl’s house then I took the train over here.

Word, you got anything specific you want to skate? You were talking about some rail.

Yeah, some bump to rail by Wash. I’m not sure if I have really seen people skate it.

When are you and Daniel (Trapani) going to drop more “Go-Go” merch?

We are working on something right now. I want to drop some shirts by the end of the summer, but we have a good Fall/Winter collection that we are working on.

I feel like it’s been a couple of years already, how long has it been?

2019 is when we started. Then we had one year where we really were not doing much, then I just came over here to NY and seen everyone doing their thing and I was like “fuck it, I’m going to make clothes again”. It’s something that I really like doing. It brings me satisfaction seeing people be like “bruh, I like that shirt” and I’m just thinking “I made this in my basement today”.

Are you going to stay in the streets this winter or you going back to the fuckin slopes?

Uh snowboarding? Honestly, if I can afford to snowboard then fuck it I’m snowboarding. That’s my answer to that but snowboarding is expensive.

I feel like you and I never really talked about how you met Brian and got involved with CAPS (Crazy Ass Paterson Skaters), how did that work out for you?

Brian doesn’t remember the first time I met him but it was at my old school and it had this spot. He was waxing it up and doing front tail slides and I think I was doing frontside 50’s and I had never seen anyone do a tail slide before. Back in the day everyone met up at TD so that’s where we really started talking. He seen me do a kickflip backside 50 and he was like “Now you’re skating with us” and I was like “I guess”.

How old were you then?

I started skateboarding at thirteen, so kickflip back 50 was probably like fifteen.

You moved over here from Jamaica, then lived in Paterson and Hackensack. Which has been your favorite spot?

I really did like living in Paterson, it was just like where I grew up and where I became who I was and who I am til this day. I feel like in Hackensack I was kind of a different person almost, I really didn’t know who I was. Paterson is where I found myself, definitely Paterson.

So you wouldn’t have met everyone by the time that you moved to Paterson.

In sixth grade I met Lil Cris and there was a whole little skate crew there by school 24, which is really lucky because I could have gone to any school in thirty schools. I just chose this one because I liked the architecture. There was a lot of glass and I thought it looked modern and liked it. I just so happened to be skating to the school one day before school even started and I seen this group of kids in front of me. We ended up going in the same direction to the same school and it has been history ever since.

What was worse back in the day, not being able to hit the homies up in real time because we didn’t have phones, or having to find boards and shit that we could skate?

The thing is, you didn’t have to hit the homies up back in the day because everyone was at TD. In New York you gotta hit the homies up, in Paterson, you skate around to a couple of spots because there are like four, you are going to see someone. Then you’re like “where the homies at?” then they are like “Oh they are up by international” and you find the homies. Back in the day boards were scarce and shit. If you snapped your board you were out for four to five days. You were skating the worst boards ever, straight trapezoids.

I feel like Peanut and all the jits don’t really know how good they have it.

They really don’t.

If you were to get dropped off somewhere random with no phone today, do you think you are still getting back home in a timely fashion?

In NJ it is kinda easy. 100%. I don’t think I can get lost, not just in Jersey, but in the Northeast in general. I don’t think there is any way I can get lost, it’s like impossible. How am I going to get lost? Like in the woods?

I don’t know fool, people got a poor sense of direction. What really had me weak was that one day Omar’s car broke down dumb far and you didn’t wait so you just started to push back to the park.

I just had this thing where I used to go on far skates looking for spots and I had kind of skated towards that area. I did not know the area exactly; I knew that if I kept going on in this direction I would eventually get to an area that I skated to a while ago. I would just take one street and just go down a hot five, eight, maybe ten miles. What is it like four miles from Hackensack to Paterson?

I feel like it’s maybe six. Speaking of the woods, when are you picking up a fishing rod again?

I was trying to get back into fishing the other day. I had gotten a fly rod because I thought I was into fly fishing but then it became too niche and it’s not even worth it. Fishing is already hard then to make it more difficult… I just got a little bit of money, I might just buy a rod.

Do you plan on doing any carpentry any time soon or is that a dub now?

Bro, that is not a dub it’s just harder than you think to get a job in carpentry. It’s like you literally got to take time out of your life to go to a thirty hour OSHA class then you have to go to another ten hour scaffolding class. That’s pretty much it. I have been applying to jobs for anything.

If we could squeeze in another trip this summer where should we go?

Probably Baltimore. That’s the only place we haven’t really been.

If you could erase a trick from everyone’s head what would it be?

Hospital flips shouldn’t exist. It is not a pretty trick and there is no finesse in it. Just shouldn’t be done.

Favorite video part and why?

That is tough. I don’t want to be cliché and say Ishod Chronicles 2 although I did watch that part over and over and over. I don’t want people to hate me if I say Nyjah’s “Fade to Black”. That is a great part. One of the greatest video parts of all time. Switch big heel Hollywood 16 is one I’m not letting go. Favorite part? I’ll just be corny and say Antwuan Dixon Baker 3. Anything that Beagle filmed during that time is so perfectly edited. Good filming, no cheap tricks, that whole project was done so well.

I know you like (video) editing and stuff like that, do you pay attention to all the fine details as much as the skating during videos?

If one is off it throws the whole thing off. How far the filmer is with the fisheye too. Are they cutting off the whole body, or cutting off heads? Does the stair set look good? You see things from different angles and you are like oh he made it look big, you can really make the skater look good. I feel like that is really the job of the filmer, trying to make the skater look as good as possible really. That’s why I feel like Strobeck is so popular, he does his thing the best. He has this way of making simple things look good. A lot filmers can’t pull it off.

Thanks for doing this!

Shout out Daniel Trapani, that’s his government.