Like most people of a certain age who are into music or fashion, I certainly feel I can trace the roots of my love for hip-hop and garmentry back to the heady days of being a scruffy little skateboarder. At 14 years old all I cared about was skating. Every morning I woke up and watched skate video’s while eating breakfast, one eye firmly fixed on the overcast sky, praying for the absence of rain. For a kid from Hackney, these skate videos offered a glimpse into a completely different world to the grey concrete malaise of British winters. Apart from the glinting sunlight and seemingly unending variety of staircases, rails and benches waxed to the hilt, these videos also brought style and substance to the forefront of my consciousness. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but it truly was a renaissance of my senses.
I went from wearing Reebook Classics, Adidas tracksuits and gold sovereign rings to seeing high-tops and ridiculously baggy jeans, chucks and chinos and dudes with long-ass hair getting chased by cops and security guards through wealthy Californian suburbs. I heard music by the likes of Gangstaar, Company Flow and DJ Shadow for the first time, which was in many ways the opposing voice to those of many of the skaters I was watching, that of the ‘disenfranchised youth’. Or maybe they were both disenfranchised, just at opposite ends of the social spectrum – one group left in the gutter to rot, the other forgotten among the rich palm tree lined boulevards of Silicon Valley. Maybe that was their meeting point. And then there was the entrepreneurial side to it all. These rappers were doing shit for themselves. Every record was re-constructing the music industry as we knew it, while the skateboarders were taking an individualistic sport and making it “tribal”, then formatting those tribes into product, and selling it by the t-shirt load.
Whatever it was, I related to it, embraced it and ran with it, and I’ve been running ever since. Until recently that is. After having numerous conversations with someone close to me, I realised I’d totally lost track of that innocence, that ideological purity that drove me through my teenage years, a gift skateboarding and it’s integral culture had given me. Talk to anyone these days about Streetwear, and the idea that it’s ‘died a death’ is often brought up. Another view is that the generation who were skaters and sneaker-heads have simply ’grown up’, and the Heritage and workwear trend is indicative of that collective generational ageing process. I think there is certainly some truth in that, but I hope that we don’t completely forget where we came from, how we got to the brogues and Oxfords and buffalo plaid down vests. Skateboarding was the catalyst for so many of the ideas that have helped shape our respective creative industries, so here’s some clips from those videos that used to inspire me every morning. I hope that they remind you of the journey too. The good ‘ol days.
dope videos.